# Geological Influences on Wine Quality: Analyzing Nebbiolo Grapes from Northern Italy
## 4 Discussion
The relatively consistent Sr values across several samples from the Canavese region indicate that certain areas may impart unique mineral signatures to the grapes, which could be useful for tracing wine origins. However, the inability to achieve definitive results for grape provenance through individual element analysis suggests that a multifaceted approach is necessary. Variations in Ba concentrations were limited, with only a few samples deviating significantly from average values, which may not provide sufficient discriminative power. These challenges underline the complexity of grape composition and the need for robust analytical techniques to better correlate mineral content with geographical origins [33]. The analysis of must samples showed a pronounced reduction in the concentrations of Ca, K, and Mg, likely due to the loss of solid components during processing. This decline raises questions about mineral transfer throughout winemaking and how it affects the final product. While some trends observed in _mesoelements_ were consistent with those in grape samples, the lower absolute values suggest a shift in mineral availability during fermentation. The application of PCA to the must samples corroborated previous findings, effectively grouping samples from distinct regions. However, exceptions in sample positioning high light the nuances of mineral transfer processes and the influence of unification techniques on elemental composition. Finally, the analysis of wines indicated significant reductions in priority elements, echoing trends observed in musts. The effectiveness of PCA in grouping wines based on _microelements_ suggests that these components may play a crucial role in defining wine character and provenance. However, the less successful grouping of wines based on _mesoelements_ underscores the complexity of wine composition and the need for further investigation into the interactions among various elements during the fermentation process. The overall analysis of the results revealed a relationship between the concentrations of plant-available cations in the studied soils and the compositions of the grapes, grape musts, and wines. All the cations analyzed generally showed higher concentrations in grapes compared to the soils, with progressively lower concentrations found in the grape musts and wines. This result aligns with previous findings in the literature, such as those by [PERSON] et al. [28], who, in their study of elemental composition during wine-making, highlighted the progressive decrease in elemental concentrations in the liquid fractions, coupled with an enrichment in the solid phases, such as the must cake and yeast lees, which were then removed in further stages of production. Notably, the concentrations of Ca, Sr, and Ba were most strongly associated with the organic composition of the grapes [29; 30], as outlined, for example, by [PERSON] et al. [30], who, in their study, hypothesized the direct influence of the presence of these bivalent cations on metabolic reactions and ion exchange processes within plant cells. For this reason, an intriguing direction for future research could be the analysis of the wines characterized at the elemental level in this study to assess potential variations in the development of organic compounds such as sugars, polyphenols, tannins, and anthocyanins, which may be linked to their mineral composition. For instance, NW3 and NW9, which exhibited higher levels of both Sr and Ba compared to the other samples, are expected--based on the literature--to show different patterns in the development of polyphenols, anthocyanins, and tannins, compared to NM15 and NM17, which had high Ba concentrations but relatively low Sr levels.