The Geodiversity of the Ligurian DOC Vineyards and Its Relationships with the Terroir

The Liguria region (NW Italy) is characterized by a wide geodiversity, which is strictly correlated with a huge variety of landscapes. This article reports and discusses the results of a multidisciplinary research performed to investigate the relationships among the "geological fingerprint" of soils and the quality of wines, going beyond the classical italian quality labels, such as the DOC (Controlled Designation of Origin), the DOP (Protected Designation of Origin) and the IGP (Protected Geographical Indication) labels. We applied an innovative multidisciplinary approach (geological, geomorphological, geochemical, mineralogical, ecological and vegetational) aimed to demonstrate the close relationships between the "geological fingerprint" of an area and the organoleptic properties of agricultural products.