Albanian grapevine cultivars: preliminary results of molecular, phenolic and ampelometric profiles and relatedness

are commercialised grapevine wine varieties which best represent the high variability of the Albanian autoch-thonous germplasm because of their different origin within the country and their great wine potential. We characterised these cultivars at molecular, phenolic and ampelometric level as well as assessing their relatedness. The leaves were scanned and images were analyzed us-ing SuperAmpelo, which allows to measure leaves, clus-ters, berries, and seeds, and to record the main descrip-tive ampelographic characters, including carpometric indices. The content of total anthocyanins, total flavo-noids, non-anthocyanic flavonoids, proanthocyanidins and total polyphenols were determined in the extracts of the grape skins and seeds of 10 berries from each of 10 representative clusters as well as in samples of one year old wines. For the molecular characterization, 10 SSR loci were used. The similarity of cultivars was studied by applying the Ward's method for hierarchi-cal clustering along with other Albanian genotypes. This work has completed and made more accurate the existing ampelographic descriptions found in literature with the aim to valorize these autochthonous cultivars, which could represent a valuable instrument for im-proving the local economies. K e y w o r d s: ampelometry; polyphenols; genetic relat-edness; microsatellites