Somatic mutations in Vitis vinifera L. cultivars growing in northwestern Spain

Since the beginning of XIX century, ampelography was the only technique for grapevine characterization and differentiation. The standardization of molecular tools at the end of the last century led those laborious, complex and time-consuming techniques like ampelography to be thought as unnecessary. Some authors claimed however, that both techniques should be not seen as alternatives but complementary for correct grapevine identification. More than one hundred accessions have been preserved since 1993 at the Misión Biológica de Galicia grapevine collection performed from direct prospection carried out by the researchers from the North and Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. Thirty six parameters from the OIV Descriptor List for grapevine cultivars and Vitis species were measured in each accession and an average leaf of each one was also reconstructed. Molecular analyses of the 6 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers also proposed by the OIV since 2009 were carried out to complete the characterization of this germplasm collection. The results showed five pairs of cultivars to be identical at the molecular level, with the same profile for the six SSRs analyzed ('Moscatel de Grano Menudo Blanco'/'Moscatel de Grano Menudo Rojo'; 'Brancellao Tinto'/'Brancellao Blanco'; 'Verdejo Negro'/'Bastardo Blanco'; 'Carrasco'/'Prieto Picudo' and 'Chasselas Doreè'/'Pata de Perdiz'). However, the clear ampelographic differences observed (berry colour, leaf morphology, etc.) make these cultivars to be considered not the same. Some of them are presented here for the first time as new berry color somatic mutations.