7. Avenues for future research

Although research into the biological quality of wine-growing soils has been intensifying over the past fifteen years, the data acquired today are not sufficient to reach robust, generic conclusions on the state of wine-growing soils and the impact of all associated practices. Research must therefore continue to invest heavily in fundamental and finalized approaches in this field, so as to be able to fully integrate soil biological quality as a lever for action in the evolution of the winegrowing production model towards greater environmental sustainability.

Now that research is able to provide tools for analyzing soil biology, which in some cases are even considered bioindicators capable of making operational diagnoses, there are no longer any obstacles to boosting the effort to produce knowledge. Perhaps the only remaining obstacle is conceptual. The term "agro-ecological...