MADIA - Meteorological variables for agriculture: A dataset for the Italian area.

The MADIA gridded dataset provides the dekadal series of the main agro-meteorological variables derived from ERA5 hourly surface data, across Italy for the period 1981-2021, and their respective 1981-2010 and 1991-2020 climate normals, also including absolute minimum and maximum and the main quantiles. Temporal and spatial resolutions are 10-day and 0.25 degrees respectively and the dataset is annotated with standard metadata. The dataset was obtained by: (1) estimating the daily time series of minimum, average and maximum air temperature, minimum and maximum air relative humidity, wind speed, surface solar radiation downwards, precipitation and reference evapotranspiration according to the FAO Penman-Monteith method; (2) summarising them to 10-day series as accumulated values for precipitation and evapotranspiration and mean values for the other variables. The MADIA dataset is provided in both NetCDF and csv format. A complementary vector file is provided which reports for every cell the fractions covered of the total area of each administrative unit considered to derive statistics for Italy on the European Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics levels (NUTS 2 and 3). Other potential dataset reuses are the estimation of bioclimatic indices and statistical downscaling of climate scenarios.

Tasting the Italian Terroir through Craft Beer: Quality and Sensory Assessment of Cascade Hops Grown in Central Italy and Derived Monovarietal Beers.

The present study aimed to chemically and sensorially characterize hop samples, cv Cascade, grown in two different Italian regions (Latium and Tuscany) as well as their derived beers by a multi analytical approach. Significant differences in bitter acid, oil and polyphenol content were observed for hop samples according to their origin. Gas chromatography-olfactometry analysis pointed out floral notes for Tuscany samples, where hops from Latium were characterized by spicy and resinous notes, correlated to the presence of sesquiterpenes. Differences in the molecular fingerprinting were also highlighted by Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy. The differences found in the hops were reflected in the beers, which were clearly recognized as distinct by a sensory panel. Both beer samples were mainly characterized by six aroma compounds (linalool, geraniol and ß-damascenone, citronellol, 2-phenylethyl acetate, and 2-phenylethanol), three of which were potentially responsible for the geographic origin of the hops given their significantly different concentrations.