DNA markers technology, derived from research in molecular biology and genomics, offers great promise for plant breeding, allowing the "molecular breeding" via marker-assisted selection. Grapevine genomic resources allowed, in recent years, the characterization at molecular level of genes involved in interesting phenotypes such as stenospermocarpic seedlessness, a trait really appreciated by consumers. Recent studies in table grapes revealed that the VvAGL11 gene, member of the D-lineage MADS-box family, controls the ovule identity, and thus potentially playing an important role in stenospermocarpy. Intragenic markers of VvAGL11 have been found and tested for breeding purposes. In the present paper, we describe an in deep assay on a total of 475 genotypes derived by our own grape germplasm and seeded × seedless crosses F1 offspring, to evaluate and verify the "diagnostic" power of VvAGL11 in marker-assisted selection. We found only 8/475 that were seeded and carried the seedless-associated allele in the STS p3_VvAGL11. However, and most importantly, there were no seedless varieties without such allele. We validated the marker as a 100 % effective tool for early negative selection of stenospermocarpy in Vitis vinifera L. crosses.

To characterise 31 different Aglianico accessions randomly collected in Southern Italy, 30 ampelographic descriptors, 13 SSRs and 10 AFLP primer combinations were analysed. An appreciable variation of ampelographic descriptors was revealed mainly by mature leaf traits, while very few variations were recorded for shoot and berry traits. Similarly, all SSR loci revealed molecular monomorphism and AFLPs with a very high genetic similarity (Dice coefficient) among all the accessions considered. One of the aims of this study was to clarify the genetic assessment of Aglianico Nero and Aglianico del Vulture Nero, since they are registered as two different cultivars with distinct varietal codes at the Italian Register of Grape Varieties. Registered Aglianico Nero and Aglianico del Vulture Nero were included in the analyses, compared and used as reference material. Our plants showed that all the accessions tested, independent from the biotype, and the two registered cultivars belong to the same genotype, suggesting that, as reported by the Vitis International Variety Catalogue, a case of synonymy occurred between Aglianico Nero and Aglianico del Vulture Nero. These cultivars could therefore be considered as a single cultivar. Moreover, the AFLP data revealed a partial match between morphological and molecular data, showing that the AFLP molecular method was able to discriminate between different accessions belonging to the same cultivar.