Essential Oils Usage on Vitis vinifera L., from the Vineyard to Post-Harvest: Advantages, Limitations, and Future Perspectives

The search for environmentally friendly approaches in viticulture is increasing, driven by the need to minimize the ecological footprint of conventional methods while ensuring high grape quality and stable yields. Among the various alternatives explored, essential oils (EOs) have drawn attention due to their natural origin and bioactive properties, including antimicrobial, antifungal, and insect-repellent effects. They are characterized by numerous utilisations, frommanaging diseases and pests in vineyards to post-harvest applications to preserve and prolong storage duration. This innovative review examines, for the first time, the topic of EOs on viticulture, embracing their multiple uses and considering their potential influence on key quality indicators such as fruit firmness, total soluble solids, and phenolic composition. Research findings indicate that EOs can contribute to suppressing fungal development and pest invasions, thereby reducing post-harvest deterioration. However, their effectiveness is influenced by factors such as chemical composition, mode of application, and environmental conditions. Although EOs align well with the principles and broader sustainability goals of integrated pest management (IPM), several obstacles remain, including issues related to their stability, degradation rate, potential phytotoxic effects, and regulatory constraints. In addition to the undoubtedly advantageous aspect for the vineyard, the final chapter of this review focuses right on these obstacles, emphasizing the need to have long-term post-application scientific data on wine organoleptic quality and thus their presence or absence in the must.