Recovery and identification of grapevine varieties cultivated in old vineyards from Navarre (Northeastern Spain)

• A prospecting mission was performed on the oldest ‘Garnacha’ vineyards in Navarre.
• An important variety reservoir still remains within them, 33 varieties being found.
• Two different types of somatic variations arose: slight differences in SSR allele length, and appearance of 3 alleles in some SSR loci.

The reconstitution of European vineyards after the phylloxera outbreak was performed with few high-aptitude varieties. In Navarre (Spain), the variety used was mainly ‘Garnacha’, though the inclusion of a small number of plants of different varieties traditionally grown in this area within each vineyard was relatively frequent. In this context, in 2008 and 2009, a systematic survey was performed on the oldest vineyards (>50 years) from Navarre in order to gather the intravarietal diversity that could be found within ‘Garnacha’ in the region, but subsequent field observation showed 197 plants to be different from ‘Garnacha’. The aim of this study was to identify the varieties corresponding to those plants. Molecular profiles were determined using 25 SSR markers, and 33 varieties were identified: 28 of them after comparisons with national and international databases and the remaining five through other sources. Slight differences in SSR allele length were found in some of the plants identified as ‘Mazuelo’, ‘Rojal’, ‘Miguel de Arco’ and ‘Tortozona Tinta’. In addition, polymorphisms involving the appearance of a third allele were found in some plants identified as ‘Viura’, ‘Mandón’, Mazuelo’ and ‘Morate’. This study shows that an important biodiversity reservoir still remains within old vineyards and, therefore, systematic surveys on them could allow gathering the varietal richness that still can be found in the region. Additionally, somatic variation at SSR loci has been shown to occur in several grape varieties, especially in the ancient ones where the likelihood that mutations are accumulated and fixed is higher.