ABSORPTION OF RARE EARTH ELEMENTS IN GRAPEVINE RAISED IN VOLCANIC AND CARBONATE SOILS

In the age of food industry globalization, there is a brand-new problem related to the knowledge on food origin. The recent awareness of consumers has brought to the development of research for the determination of the geographic origin of food products in order to avoid any fraud. Over the last few years, there has been a significant growth in wine demand by new markets, like Asia and South America, and the growth of the request caused the conversion of big agricultural areas to vineyard. However, due to the soil quality and the local climatic conditions of the different geographical areas, the new vineyards might not be able to guarantee a highlevel quality production. Therefore, it is fundamental to preserve the quality of the wine product and to define markers and parameters to help ensure consumers; for this reasons, many studies have been carried out to find a way to preserve the wine identity through the designation of origin. As it is known, the chemical composition of wine is influenced by many factors such as grape variety, soil, climate, agricultural practices, wine making practices, transport, and storage (Marengo & Aceto, 2003; Spercovà & Suchànez, 2005). Provided that the factors influencing the wine features are multiple and difficult to analyze altogether, in this work we focused on the basic product of the wine, namely the grapevine, looking for the criteria useful for grape varieties identification. It has been shown, that the Rare Earth Elements (REEs) retain their distribution in the transition from soil to plants and can therefore be used as geographical markers in the food industry (Brown et al., 1990; Tyler, 2004). Although the concentration of trace elements and REEs in plant is very low, they play a fundamental role as a source of information. The plants absorb the REEs in a selective way: some parts of the plant such as the roots and the leaves absorb most of the REEs, whereas the absorption in the stem is minor, and it even decreases in the fruits (Censi et al., 2014). Recent study showed the REEs importance for wine identification, to prevent fraud, and to counterfeit labels by identifying the geographical origin of the wines. Extensive studies have been carried out on wines from all over the world (Rossano et al., 2007; Gonzàlvez et al., 2009; Martin et al., 2012; Aceto et al., 2013). In the frame of the present research, we chose two areas located in Sicily, and in particular in the Hyblean Plateau (SE Sicily) and at the Mt. Etna (Eastern Sicily). We selected three wineries: Avide, Cos, and Don Saro, respectively. These agricultural companies sit on different soils, since Avide and Cos vineries occur on carbonate soil, whereas Don Saro on volcanic soil. Related to the rock that crops out, the content of REEs in soils is very different; besides, the different climatic conditions affect the absorption of these elements by the vine plants. In this work, we highlighted how different cultivars can absorb REEs in different amounts and how to use REEs as a discriminating tool; at the same time, our aim was to investigate how the climatic factors and soil can affect the REEs absorption.