Effect of Nitrogen Fertilization on Savvatiano (Vitis vinifera L.) Grape and Wine Composition

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I think that the manuscript is well presented and perfectly fits the scope of the journal. 

All of my comments are in the pdf of the manuscript which I enclosed.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Mrs/Mr,

please find attached the word file with all our corrections according to your review. 

Finaly, authors appriciate the comments made by the reviewer in order to improve the quality of the manuscript

Yours Sincerely 

Dimitrios

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Line 32 “biogeochemical”. Please correct “geochemical”

Line 102 “February, of each year, vines were pruned”. You stated that the research was performed only in 2020

Line 126 “2.5. Vinification process”. please report the amount of grapes per thesis you micro-vinificated

Line 203 “as the mean standard deviation” I guess you meant “as the mean and standard deviation”

Line 224 “Harvest date was realized at the optimum maturity level” I would use a different term in the place of “realize”

Tables: please remove equal letters in case of no statistical difference between the theses by means of Tukey test. If no letter appear it means that no difference was found in the specific variable. As an example:

Table 3:

In this case letters should be deleted. Please check in all the tables.

Moreover, under each table the authors report “Values followed by different letters in each column indicate significant differences (p < 0.05) among different samples”. Did the authors performed Tukey test between variables? In this case this appears to be an error, since a multiple range test can be performed by comparing the values of a single variable between the theses, and not the variables each other. It has no sense. I therefore suggest to perform Tukey test only “horizontally”. In addition, in some cases letters miss where they should be.

Line 221-503: Throughout the Results the authors compare their results with other studies. I would move all considerations and comparisons with other findings in literature in the section “Discussion”.

Table 1: standardize the format of table 1 (particularly the font)

Line 332-333 “Apart the differences observed in the previous acids, differences observed in the concentration of acetic acid, although they didn’t affect wine quality” Please rewrite

Fig. 2. the sensorial spider plot reports asterisks referred to statistical difference. The authors do not specify which statistical test they performed. In Materials and methods section the authors state “unpaired t–test or one–way ANOVA with Tukey’s test” Anyway this statistical approach appears to be not suitable in case of sensorial data, which are based on a discrete scale (1 – 10). Therefore a Parametric approach based on means and variance appear inadequate to this analysis. I suggest to use Non Parametric tests like, as an example, “Kruskall Wallis test” based on medians and ranks and Mann Whitney test to compare one by one the wines for each variable. The tests are implemented in Statgraphics Centurion, which is the software used by the authors to perform the statistical analyses. Please reconduct statistical analyses on sensorial data.

Line 424. The authors states that “The use of a sensory panel accustomed to descriptive analysis of Savvatiano allowed some rudimentary relationships to be made between aroma compounds detected and sensory descriptors”.

I suggest the authors to consider the following papers in case they want to be more accurate in the description of sensorial aspect and their comparison with analytical data, mainly based on the concept of odour activity value (OAV)

• Suriano S, Alba V, Di Gennaro D, Basile T, Tamborra M, Tarricone L. 2016. Major phenolic and volatile compounds and their influence on sensorial aspects in stem-contact fermentation winemaking of Primitivo red wines. J Food Sci Technol. 53 (8): 3329-3339. doi: 10.1007/s13197-016-2310-0
• Gomez-Mıguez MJ, Cacho JF, Ferreira V, Vicario IM, Heredia FJ (2007) Volatile components of Zalema white wines. Food Chem 100:1464–1473. doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2005.11.045
• Jiang B, Zhang Z (2010) Volatile compounds of young wines from Cabernet Sauvignon Cabernet Gernischet and Chardonnay varieties grown in the Loess Plateau Region of China. Molecules 15:9184–9196. doi:10.3390/molecules15129184
• Tao Y, Zhang L (2010) Intensity prediction of typical aroma characters of cabernet sauvignon wine in Changli County (China). LWT Food Sci Technol 43:1550–1556. doi:10.1016/j. 782lwt.2010.06.003
• Francis L (2013) Fermentation derived aroma compounds and grape- derived monoterpenes. In: Proceedings of the 15th Australian wine industry technical conference Sydney New South Wales 13–18 July. http://www.awri.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/ 68208/francis-W07-AWITC15.pdf

Line 592: “degrease”, you mWn “decrease”?

Major points:

Tables must be verified both for format, font, letters

Statistical analysis on sensorial data should be re-conducted “non parametrically”

All the considerations and comparisons with other studies should be moved from the section “Results” to the section “Discussion”

Results and Discussions (and obviously conclusions) should be rearranged by shifting sentences in the proper section and on the base of the new findings in case of a new non parametric statistical analysis on sensorial data.

Author Response

Dear Mr/Mrs,

the authors of the manuscript would like to express our appreciation about the comments made, in order to improve the quality of the manuscript. 

please find attached the file with all our correction and addings according to your review. 

Kind regards 

Dimitrios

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

All suggested changes and modifications were taken into account by the authors.