Climate Effect on Morphological Traits and Polyphenolic Composition of Red Wine Grapes of Vitis vinifera

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

A summary and broad comments: The results can be of interest to the readers. However, the manuscript requires improvement before final publication (see the specific comments below)

Specific comments:

Abstract Lines 27-29 The conclusion concerning the effect of rainfall, temperature and UV light is too strong relating to the collected data (comparison of only two years with extreme climatic conditions). Please correct it and adjust to the results provided by your research.

Materials and Methods 

Lines 129: Please include extraction reagent details, i.e. ethanol: water: hydrochloric acid 37% ratio

Lines 161:165: Include important HPLC method details.

Results

Line 234: “Drough conditions…” – It should be: Drought conditions

Line 449-450: “Comparing varieties, ‘Syrah’ skin extracts had the highest flavonoid content and ‘Aragonês’ the lowest.” – The statement is true only for the 2017 year (fig. 9). Please correct it.

Line 446-457: The part of the article is difficult to understand. Please improve it.

Conclusions  Line 548-549: “Results suggest that the weather can have an impact on the polyphenolic profile since 548 there can be found differences on total flavonoids, anthocyanins and tannins, with higher 549 values in 2017.” According to the results shown in your article, the statement is false for total flavonoids. Please correct.

Author Response

We welcome the suggestions, and all comments were taking into account.

Please see attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

It is satisfactory in style and presentation.The overall publication shows reasonable experimental design and results. The data is presented in a comprehensive way. Last but not least, this paper arises further questions in order for you to investigate, such as:

1) Have you consider any solutions? If yes, please add it in the text.

2) Have you produce wine from the examined berries? It would be very interesting to see how it effects the final product.

Author Response

We welcome the suggestions, and all comments were taking into account. Please see the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

In my opinion this paper has a high scientific quality. It study the morphological traits and polyphenolic composition of four red wine grapes of Vitis vinisfera from south of Portugal.

In this study, climate effect is evaluated in terms of tritratable acidity, berry weight, phenolic content, pH values, .....

Only I have two comments about this paper.

1) In my opinion the tittle of this paper should include "climate effect", because is one of the most relevant study carried out in this research.

2) I have a doubt about the "Aragaones" variety of grape. I don't know what variety is. Do you know if this variety has other names? Please, add this information in this paper

Author Response

We welcome the suggestions, and all comments were taking into account.

Please see the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The crucial comments have been taken into account in the new version of the manuscript.