Genetic Study of Key Spanish Grapevine Varieties Using Microsatellite Analysis

One hundred eleven Spanish accessions of Vitis vinifera L. that had been previously differentiated by a morphological and isoenzymatic survey have been analyzed in order to resolve existing doubts and to build an easily accessible database for comparison with existing databases. Ninety-six different genotypes were observed through the analysis of 13 microsatellite loci (VVMD5, VVMD7, VVMD27, VVMD28, VVS2, VVS5, VVS29, ssrVrZAG 29, ssrVrZAG 62, ssrVrZAG 67, ssrVrZAG 83, ssrVrZAG 79, and ssrVrZAG 112). Some of the coincidences found correspond to sports. Some other cases may be viewed as authentic synonymies, while others are errors. The analysis of genetic similarity does not allow for the drawing of any general conclusions about the origin of Spanish variety groupings, although the high proportion of alleles shared among certain varieties may suggest a common origin.