Effect of Methyl Jasmonate Plus Urea Foliar Application on the Polysaccharide and Monosaccharide Composition of Tempranillo Grapes and Wines and on the Wine’s Quality

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General comments

The manuscript entitled “Effect of methyl jasmonate plus urea foliar application on polysaccharide and monosaccharide composition of Tempranillo grapes and wines” concerns the effect of foliar treatment of grapevine with methyl jasmonate and urea on the chemical composition of must and wine and on the quality of wine. An extensive section of the article is concerning the quality of wine. However, this is not reflected in the title. The phrase "wine quality" was also not included in the keywords. It is worth changing the title, for example to “Effect of foliar application of methyl jasmonate and urea on the composition of polysaccharides and monosaccharides in Tempranillo grapes and wines and on the wine quality”, so that it takes into account the real scope of research. The changed title may also be of interest to additional readers. It is advisable to add the phrase "prelimary results" to the title, due to the lack of clear conclusions confirming the research hypothesis on the usefulness of the mixture of methyl jasmonate and urea in the cultivation of 'Tempranillo' vines. The two-year study showed that the parameters studied were mostly more dependent on the study season than on the treatment. Therefore, the present results are only the basis for further research. The research methodology, relating to the field part and the extensive analytical part, corresponds very well to the topic and is typical for this type of research. The statistical elaborating of the results and the way they are presented (tables and figures) is absolutely correct.

The authors insufficiently discussed the role of the season factor in the research (l. 209-221). Perhaps placing more detailed meteorological data on the course of temperatures and precipitation will be helpful in interpreting the results.

The first two sentences in the "Conclusions" section are redundant. This section should contain the most important findings, while these sentences have their place in the "Abstract" and "Introduction" sections. It is advisable for the "Conclusions" section to begin with the sentence "Overall, the effect of MeJ+Ur foliar treatment was season dependent”. The sentence “Considering general parameters, in the first season studied, a reduction on the alcohol content in MeJ+Ur wines was observed, which it is interesting to mitigate the effects of climate change.”, should be second from the end in this section .

It should be emphasized that in the era of climate change, the present research is needed and important. The entry in the "Funding" section indicates that the authors probably did not have the financial opportunity to continue their research, which could help in formulating clear conclusions and practical recommendations. Nevertheless, the manuscript after minimal changes, contains valuable material for publication.

 Detailed comment  

l. 172-173 it should be: white fruit, red fruit, black fruit,..  

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

General comments

The manuscript entitled “Effect of methyl jasmonate plus urea foliar application on polysaccharide and monosaccharide composition of Tempranillo grapes and wines” concerns the effect of foliar treatment of grapevine with methyl jasmonate and urea on the chemical composition of must and wine and on the quality of wine. An extensive section of the article is concerning the quality of wine. However, this is not reflected in the title. The phrase "wine quality" was also not included in the keywords. It is worth changing the title, for example to “Effect of foliar application of methyl jasmonate and urea on the composition of polysaccharides and monosaccharides in Tempranillo grapes and wines and on the wine quality”, so that it takes into account the real scope of research. The changed title may also be of interest to additional readers. It is advisable to add the phrase "prelimary results" to the title, due to the lack of clear conclusions confirming the research hypothesis on the usefulness of the mixture of methyl jasmonate and urea in the cultivation of 'Tempranillo' vines. The two-year study showed that the parameters studied were mostly more dependent on the study season than on the treatment. Therefore, the present results are only the basis for further research. The research methodology, relating to the field part and the extensive analytical part, corresponds very well to the topic and is typical for this type of research. The statistical elaborating of the results and the way they are presented (tables and figures) is absolutely correct.

Response: Thank you for your comments. The suggestion to include quality in the title and keywords has been take into account. Regarding the suggestion to added “preliminary results” to the tittle, we have decided not included it into the tittle to avoid make it longer, but this idea is showed in the text, for example in the line 90, where we stand out that this is a novel work.

The authors insufficiently discussed the role of the season factor in the research (l. 209-221). Perhaps placing more detailed meteorological data on the course of temperatures and precipitation will be helpful in interpreting the results.

Response: Thank you for your suggestion, we have added some information related with meteorological condition in the text (Line 214).

The first two sentences in the "Conclusions" section are redundant. This section should contain the most important findings, while these sentences have their place in the "Abstract" and "Introduction" sections. It is advisable for the "Conclusions" section to begin with the sentence "Overall, the effect of MeJ+Ur foliar treatment was season dependent”. The sentence “Considering general parameters, in the first season studied, a reduction on the alcohol content in MeJ+Ur wines was observed, which it is interesting to mitigate the effects of climate change.”, should be second from the end in this section .

It should be emphasized that in the era of climate change, the present research is needed and important. The entry in the "Funding" section indicates that the authors probably did not have the financial opportunity to continue their research, which could help in formulating clear conclusions and practical recommendations. Nevertheless, the manuscript after minimal changes, contains valuable material for publication.

Response: Thank you for your suggestion, we have modified the Conclusions and we have emphasized the importance of this studio to mitigate the effects of climate change.

 Detailed comment  

1. 172-173 it should be: white fruit, red fruit, black fruit,..  

Response: Thank you, we have deleted the duplicate black fruit.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

peer-review-28251379.v1.docx

In this article, the authors studied the effects of methyl jasmonate plus urea foliar application on vines of tempranillo variety on the composition of polysaccharide and monosaccharide both in grapes and wines products at pilot scale (30L).

The paper contains some parts that need improvement. Therefore, I recommend some improvements that could upgrade the paper.

Materials and Methods:

For chemicals, please add the brand used.

The authors conducted their experiments in two different years, 2019 and 2020, and found several differences. What were the climatic characteristics of these two vintages?

Response: This information has been added (Line 227).

Did the authors use the same rows of vines in the two vintages studied?

Response: Yes, the trial was conducted in the same vineyard and into the same vines the two years of the study.

Paragraph 2.5: add more information on the methods used.

Response: We do not understand what the reviewer is referring to, we believe that the most relevant information about the statistical analysis carried out with the results of this work is included. If the reviewer considers that this is not the case, please let us know what you think is missing, thank you.

Lanes 153-154. Please revise the sentence, the verb is missing.

Response: Thank you for your appreciation, we have added the verb (Line 165).

Lane 157: the authors report a temperature rise of 40°C/min. Is this value correct?

Response: Yes, it is correct. The oven program starts at an initial temperature of 120 ºC which was increased at a rate of 1 ºC min^-1 to 145 ºC and then to 180 ºC at a rate of 0.9 ºC min^-1 and finally to 230 ºC at 40 ºC min^-1. 

Lane 173: “black fruit” is reported two times.

Response: Thank you, it has been corrected (Line 184).

Tables 1 and 2: Please remove the letters from the table when there are no statistically significant differences as done for tables 3 and 4.

Response: Thank you for your suggestion, we have deleted the letters when there are no statistically significant differences.

Table 2: How did the authors calculate the colour and total polyphenol indices?

Response: They have been calculated by spectrometric measurement.

Tables 5 and 6: Please add to tables 5 and 6 the different statistical significance attributed to the different number of asterisks as reported in table 7.

Response: This information has been added.

Table 7: Please check how the numbers are shown in the table. For example, in table 7, whole numbers are separated from decimals by a comma instead of a full stop.

Response: Thank you for your appreciation, we have changed it.

Figure 1 and 2: please improve the quality of the images.

Response: Thank you for your appreciation, we have improved the figures.

Reviewer 3 Report

Abstract. The first two sentences are not really true. Polysaccharides are not one of the most important macromolecules in wine. They are actually one of the only macromolecules in wine. If that explains their value than so be it but the authors need to acknowledge this. The second sentence is poorly constructed. Technological maturity and phenolic maturity are socially constructed concepts that are vague or undefined. If you look up technological maturity in the dictionary you find various different definitions that have nothing to do with grapes but are instead to do with technology being utilized for a long enough time period so that the initial faults or inherent problems can be overcome by the developers of said technology. In any case it is unclear what if anything polysaccharides have to do with phenolics or “mature” phenolics. The abstract should just reflect the experimental design and the outcome of that experiment with perhaps a bit of speculation at the end about how the outcome of the experiment might be applied or utilized by other scientists or industries. 

Introduction

Line 30-40: The authors should rewrite this to explain how much of the various different polysaccharides are present in grapes and the corresponding wines. 

Line 41: A grape cell wall is not a complex network. Please rewrite. 

Line 44: Is there any evidence that there are polysaccharides that present in the grape pulp that are also released into the juice or must during white or, red winemaking?

Line 46: Incomplete sentence

At this point I decided to stop editing the paper for language issues due to the poor writing. This is not my job.

Line 48-49. Although there are citations for the conceptual ideas of technological or phenolic maturity the authors should these terms skeptically as they are not widely accepted nor are there accepted values which connect phenolic fruit composition with wine phenolic composition. In any case there are multiple classes of phenolics in grapes and it is unclear which class is in question.  Anthocyanins? Tannins? Flavonols? Hydroxycinnamates? If technological maturity relates to the maximum sugar concentration that the fruit accumulates before it starts to dehydrates just explain that clearly to the reader as this definition is not widely understood.

Line 103 Tween is a copyrighted compound and depending on the version utilized the composition is different. Please use the copyright symbol and make sure you put correct synonym such as polyethylene glycol monooleate etc. 

Line 109 Typically it is referred to as potential alcohol not probable alcohol.

Line 112 How did you manage to make wine in a 30 L tank with ~100 g or 100 mL (best case scenario) of liquid? It is better to explain exactly the number of kg of fruit that was used for the experimental winemaking, otherwise the reader will be confused about what you did.

Line 121 Just an FYI. Listing off dosage in grams per hectoliters when you have a few liters of wine that you made is absurd. 

Line 133 This is a method for anthocyanins not anthocyanidins. Please correct this. I am assuming you actually measured the anthocyanins and not the aglycone form? 

Line 167-176. This is unacceptable sensory methodology. There is no such thing as the “blind tasting system.” Your experimental design includes both hedonistic and quantitative analysis using the same panelists which is very problematic. You are introducing multiple sensory errors and biases such as “horns” or “halo” or “dumping” type effects by asking your panelists opinions about the wines while rating the intensity of olfactory and taste attributes of your wines. In any It is not clear if the panelists were trained with the use of the terms that they were rating and if standards were employed for the various attributes.  As this is written your sensory results are unacceptable and should be redone with separate panels to separate hedonistic from quantitative evaluation of your wines.

Table 1. Why wasn’t a two-way ANOVA applied to this data? This table is poorly constructed. Use a two way-ANOVA and then a 1-way ANOVA if you find interactions.  Please report p-values for ANOVAs as rows underneath data. When there are no statistical differences don’t use letters. Glucose + fructose isn’t required in this table as it can be calculated by the reader.

Please list off the units for the various measurements. Why is the abbreviation for YAN in the table caption when you don’t use an abbreviation in the table? Your soluble solids number contains one too many significant digits. Your equipment is not rated to measure that last digit. Your values should be 24.7 and 23.0 for 2019 and 22.3 and 22.8.  You should not actually report potential alcohol in this table as this can be calculated by simply multiplying the soluble solids value by 0.59. In any case you actually measured the real alcohol in table 2 so the potential alcohol measurement is a moot point. You have the actual alcohol so just stick to that. 

Line 201-202. Your data with regard to increasing phenolics via the addition of methyl jasmonate and urea is not true. Your data is inconsistent. You have different results from one year to the next. 

Table 2. It is unclear why your fermentation for the methyl jasmonate + urea has lower alcohol by half of a percent than it should? It is weird that you report the potential alcohol and then measure it and when it doesn’t match why don’t you attempt to explain it?

Line 220-225. This is poorly written again. Your results are inconsistent and inconclusive. One year the treatment lowers the alcohol and the next year it does not. You should avoid saying things like slight as all that matters here is it statistically significantly different or not. If not then say so don’t try fool the readers into believing a trend exists when it doesn’t.

Table 2. Why do you report YAN post fermentation and then not discuss it? As it appears currently the treatment with urea and methyl jasmonate in 2019 has quite a lot of residual nitrogen even after MLF which is fodder for spoilage organisms. You should discuss this as a potential negative aspect of your experiment.

Line 239-line 249 The variation between seasons observed in polysaccharide composition is poorly explained. The variation in ripening was small not large. You should measure the polysaccharide composition during ripening to confirm if the changes in polysaccharide composition. 

Line 285. This is another poor explanation.  You sum up all the differences due to climate? You don’t have any climate data in your paper to explain this. 

Table 5. Multifactor analysis is not required here. 

Figure 1 shows me nothing that I could not have guessed from looking at the data. 

Your sensory data is poor and should be removed from your paper. OIV is not a scientific publication. It may have methods that you can cite but that doesn't make it a methods journal.

Overall review of this paper: This paper should not be published. The results are inconsistent. The authors should repeat the experiment again and publish only the fruit data and basic wine data. The sensory for this experiment is unpublishable. The writing in many cases is poor and the explanations are short and not deep enough to explain what is happening.  The authors should have included weather data to explain the variation they are observing between the seasons as they seem to believe it is the main source of variation. 

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Abstract. The first two sentences are not really true. Polysaccharides are not one of the most important macromolecules in wine. They are actually one of the only macromolecules in wine. If that explains their value than so be it but the authors need to acknowledge this. The second sentence is poorly constructed. Technological maturity and phenolic maturity are socially constructed concepts that are vague or undefined. If you look up technological maturity in the dictionary you find various different definitions that have nothing to do with grapes but are instead to do with technology being utilized for a long enough time period so that the initial faults or inherent problems can be overcome by the developers of said technology. In any case it is unclear what if anything polysaccharides have to do with phenolics or “mature” phenolics. The abstract should just reflect the experimental design and the outcome of that experiment with perhaps a bit of speculation at the end about how the outcome of the experiment might be applied or utilized by other scientists or industries. 

Response: Thank you for your suggestions. We have modified some sentences in the abstracts to clarify it (Lines 10-11).

Regarding the terms of technological maturity and phenolic maturity, we consider that are widely employed in enology and we have explained better in the introduction their meaning (Lines 54-56).

Introduction

Line 30-40: The authors should rewrite this to explain how much of the various different polysaccharides are present in grapes and the corresponding wines. 

Response: Thank you for your suggestion, we have added a sentence to clarify it (Lines: 43-44).

Line 41: A grape cell wall is not a complex network. Please rewrite. 

Response: We have removed this part of the sentence.

Line 44: Is there any evidence that there are polysaccharides that present in the grape pulp that are also released into the juice or must during white or, red winemaking?

Response: Yes, “Polysaccharides are extracted during the mechanical operations applied to the grapes (destemming-crushing, pressing and pumping of the crushed destemmed grapes) and during some stages of the winemaking. Therefore, polysaccharides are released in white, rosé and red winemaking during the pre-maceration process before starting the alcoholic fermentation but also during the maceration-fermentation of the red wine elaborations  , and during the aging of the wines on their lees. On the contrary, other stages of the winemaking, such as filtration, produce a decrease in the content of wine polysaccharides”  References:

(1)  Martinez-Lapuente,L., Guadalupe, Z.,  Higueras, M., Ayestaran, B., Pérez-Porras, P.,  Bautista-Ortin, A.B., Gomez-Plaza, E. (2022). Effect of Pre-fermen. tative Treatments on Polysaccharide Composition of White and Rosé Musts and Wines. J. Agric. Food Chem. 2022

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.2c08976

(2) Martinez-Lapuente,L., Guadalupe, Z., Ayestaran, B., Pérez-Porras, P.,  Bautista-Ortin, A.B., Gomez-Plaza, E. (2021).

 Ultrasound treatment of crushed grapes: Effect on the must and red wine polysaccharide composition, Food Chemistry, 356, 129669.

 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2021.129669

(3) Martinez-Lapuente,L., Guadalupe, Z., Ayestaran, B. (2017). Effect of egg albumin fining, progressive clarification and cross-flow microfiltration on the polysaccharide and proanthocyanidin composition of red varietal wines.Food Research International, 96, 235–243

Line 46: Incomplete sentence

Response: We have added information (Lines: 54-56).

At this point I decided to stop editing the paper for language issues due to the poor writing. This is not my job.

Line 48-49. Although there are citations for the conceptual ideas of technological or phenolic maturity the authors should these terms skeptically as they are not widely accepted nor are there accepted values which connect phenolic fruit composition with wine phenolic composition. In any case there are multiple classes of phenolics in grapes and it is unclear which class is in question.  Anthocyanins? Tannins? Flavonols? Hydroxycinnamates? If technological maturity relates to the maximum sugar concentration that the fruit accumulates before it starts to dehydrates just explain that clearly to the reader as this definition is not widely understood.

Response: Thank you for the comment, we consider that are common terms in enology. Anyway, we have added information about the meaning of this terms to make clearer the paper (Lines:51-53).

Line 103 Tween is a copyrighted compound and depending on the version utilized the composition is different. Please use the copyright symbol and make sure you put correct synonym such as polyethylene glycol monooleate etc. 

Response: Thank you for your comment, we have added the copyright symbol and the brand of the Tween, as well as the synonym (Line 109).

Line 109 Typically it is referred to as potential alcohol not probable alcohol.

Response: We have changed it throughout the text.

Line 112 How did you manage to make wine in a 30 L tank with ~100 g or 100 mL (best case scenario) of liquid? It is better to explain exactly the number of kg of fruit that was used for the experimental winemaking, otherwise the reader will be confused about what you did.

Response: Thank you for the comment, we have added the weight of the grapes harvested (Line 123).

Line 121 Just an FYI. Listing off dosage in grams per hectoliters when you have a few liters of wine that you made is absurd. 

Response: Thank you for the comment, but it is the most common way of expressing this information.

Line 133 This is a method for anthocyanins not anthocyanidins. Please correct this. I am assuming you actually measured the anthocyanins and not the aglycone form? 

Response: You are correct, sorry for the mistake. It has been corrected (Line 143).

Line 167-176. This is unacceptable sensory methodology. There is no such thing as the “blind tasting system.” Your experimental design includes both hedonistic and quantitative analysis using the same panelists which is very problematic. You are introducing multiple sensory errors and biases such as “horns” or “halo” or “dumping” type effects by asking your panelists opinions about the wines while rating the intensity of olfactory and taste attributes of your wines. In any It is not clear if the panelists were trained with the use of the terms that they were rating and if standards were employed for the various attributes.  As this is written your sensory results are unacceptable and should be redone with separate panels to separate hedonistic from quantitative evaluation of your wines.

Response: When we employed the term “blind tasting system” we want to express that panelist don’t know which samples they are testing. Of course, the panelists were trained with the terms employed. We didn’t think that there was a problem about ask panelists about their opinion of wines tasted, we will take into account this comment for the further sensory analysis.

Table 1. Why wasn’t a two-way ANOVA applied to this data? This table is poorly constructed. Use a two way-ANOVA and then a 1-way ANOVA if you find interactions.  Please report p-values for ANOVAs as rows underneath data. When there are no statistical differences don’t use letters. Glucose + fructose isn’t required in this table as it can be calculated by the reader.

Please list off the units for the various measurements. Why is the abbreviation for YAN in the table caption when you don’t use an abbreviation in the table? Your soluble solids number contains one too many significant digits. Your equipment is not rated to measure that last digit. Your values should be 24.7 and 23.0 for 2019 and 22.3 and 22.8.  You should not actually report potential alcohol in this table as this can be calculated by simply multiplying the soluble solids value by 0.59. In any case you actually measured the real alcohol in table 2 so the potential alcohol measurement is a moot point. You have the actual alcohol so just stick to that. 

Response: Thank you for your suggestions, we have made changes in the Table improve it. To study the interactions, we made a multifactorial analysis. YAN abbreviature is employed into the table. We consider that the information of potencial alcohol is an interesting measure to compare the grape maturation and for this reason we remain this information into the Table 1. The real alcohol of wines also is important but for us, are not exclusive information.

Line 201-202. Your data with regard to increasing phenolics via the addition of methyl jasmonate and urea is not true. Your data is inconsistent. You have different results from one year to the next. 

Response: In that paragraph we are always talking about the results of the first vintage. We have added a sentence to clarify this (Lines: 215-216).

Table 2. It is unclear why your fermentation for the methyl jasmonate + urea has lower alcohol by half of a percent than it should? It is weird that you report the potential alcohol and then measure it and when it doesn’t match why don’t you attempt to explain it?

Response: Potential alcohol was determined by the rule that 18 grams of sugar yields 1 % v/v.

All the wines had an alcohol content lower than the potential alcohol. Probably the inoculated yeasts needed more sugar to produce 1 % v/v or during fermentation-maceration there were alcohol losses caused by the adsorption of ethanol by the pomace.

Line 220-225. This is poorly written again. Your results are inconsistent and inconclusive. One year the treatment lowers the alcohol and the next year it does not. You should avoid saying things like slight as all that matters here is it statistically significantly different or not. If not then say so don’t try fool the readers into believing a trend exists when it doesn’t.

Response: In no case do we try to deceive the reader, we describe the results by vintage and we always emphasize that there was a great difference in the results observed between vintages. Therefore, foliar treatments seem to present a clear seasonal dependence. In any case, we have rewritten the sentence to clarify it (Lines: 236-241). We consider that the term “slight” is correct since wines in the second vintage only showed statistically significant differences on two enological parameters CI and lactic acid content, which is described in the text.

Table 2. Why do you report YAN post fermentation and then not discuss it? As it appears currently the treatment with urea and methyl jasmonate in 2019 has quite a lot of residual nitrogen even after MLF which is fodder for spoilage organisms. You should discuss this as a potential negative aspect of your experiment.

Response: We have discussed this in the text (Lines: 230-321). In the Table 1, the YAN content of MeJ+Ur grapes in the first vintages was significantly higher than control grapes, for this reason is normal that the YAN content or the nitrogen residual content in MeJ+Ur wines (2019) also is bigger than control wines (2019).

Line 239-line 249 The variation between seasons observed in polysaccharide composition is poorly explained. The variation in ripening was small not large. You should measure the polysaccharide composition during ripening to confirm if the changes in polysaccharide composition. 

Response: Thank you for your suggestion, we consider it to further studies.

Line 285. This is another poor explanation.  You sum up all the differences due to climate? You don’t have any climate data in your paper to explain this. 

Response: We have added information about the differences on meteorological data from both vintages studied (Lines 220-221).

Table 5. Multifactor analysis is not required here. 

Response: In our opinion, the multifactor analysis provides information about how affect the different factors that can influence the enological parameters in this study.

Figure 1 shows me nothing that I could not have guessed from looking at the data. 

Response: We employed the discriminant analysis to study possible differences not observed with the analytical data.

Your sensory data is poor and should be removed from your paper. OIV is not a scientific publication. It may have methods that you can cite but that doesn't make it a methods journal.

Response: We are sorry that the reviewer does not find sensory analysis appropriate, but it is the one used in our investigations.

Overall review of this paper: This paper should not be published. The results are inconsistent. The authors should repeat the experiment again and publish only the fruit data and basic wine data. The sensory for this experiment is unpublishable. The writing in many cases is poor and the explanations are short and not deep enough to explain what is happening.  The authors should have included weather data to explain the variation they are observing between the seasons as they seem to believe it is the main source of variation. 

Response: We are sorry that you did not like our work. We hope that after the changes made according to the suggestions of the other 3 reviewers and yours, you will change your opinion about it. The meteorological data has been included in the text and we have improved the content of the paper according to your suggestion and the comments of the other referees. In a field study are necessary minimum two vintages to hypothesize about the effect of the treatments studied but, as we mentioned in the conclusions, “More studies should carry out to clarify the effect of MeJ+Ur foliar treatment on monosaccharide and polysaccharide composition of grapes and wines”. Anyway, we consider that this study provides interesting information about the effect that foliar treatments produced in grapes and wines composition, and in addition, this information could have a special value to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Reviewer 4 Report

Please see the attached review plus marked manuscript

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please see the attached review plus marked manuscript

peer-review-28284892.v1.pdf

We have included and correct all of yours specific comments.

M&M 102: Why is there not two more treatments: 1) MeJ alone; 2) Urea alone?

Response: We appreciate the reviewer's comment. The individual treatments suggested by the reviewer have been previously studied, so the novelty of this work is the combined use of the elicitor and the nitrogen compound.

Please indicate number of replications and the number of vines in each replicate. Is it 10 vines per rep?

Response: 3 replicates was made for each treatment studied, and in each replicate, ten vines were treated.

Line 115: I suggest use the term "variables" instead of "parameters" throughout the ms.

Response: We usually employed this term for described the analysis of general enological parameters in grapes, is a common term in viticulture.

Please revise this and all other table captions so that tables stands on their own. For example, grape variety, location, etc. Same for other tables/ figures

Response: We have added some information to achieve this.

Table 3: Not all compound abbreviations are defined in the table footnotes. Please check. Check all other tables.

Please choose another word for "frankness"

Response: We consider that is a correct term. The frankness of a wine is given by the absence of undesirable tastes such as cork or vinegar.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

I reviewed the comments and the response. I see no reason to change my opinion about the work. The authors seem oblivious about how to actually conduct sensory analysis. The remainder of the work is inconsistent at best. This case is fairly straightforward. There are obvious flaws in the work and the outcomes aren’t novel or helpful. The writing is poor and they have attempted to obscure their inconclusive results with statistics.

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I reviewed the comments and the response. I see no reason to change my opinion about the work. The authors seem oblivious about how to actually conduct sensory analysis.

Response: We do not understand what the reviewer means when she/he says that we are “oblivious about how to actually conduct sensory analysis”, i.e., we don't understand it because we have used the tasting sheet approved by the OIV [reference number 38 in the manuscript], which is the international organization that regulates viticultural and enological practices, including sensory analysis.

The remainder of the work is inconsistent at best. This case is fairly straightforward. There are obvious flaws in the work and the outcomes aren’t novel or helpful. The writing is poor and they have attempted to obscure their inconclusive results with statistics.

Response: The results are novel, if the reviewer considers that they are not, please indicate the references of the works where the effect of our treatments on the polysaccharide composition of Tempranillo grapes and wine has been studied. Moreover, we think that the statistical treatment we have used to interpret the results is correct. Statistics does not obscure anything, it is a tool that allows us to discuss the results in a scientific and clear way, without inventing anything or making up results.