To further investigate the Rda1 locus, 24 full sibling progenies were used to delineate candidate resistance genes with an eQTL approach at 14 hpi. To increase the statistical power of this analysis, we followed some simple steps: first, we used the saturated genetic maps and the Rda1 locus position to identify vines with nearby recombination. These vines were sampled and used for construction of RNA-Seq libraries to provide better mapping resolution by maximizing the recombination events within and near the locus. Then, we focused the eQTL analysis by selecting those transcripts that were DE between vines with resistant and susceptible phenotypes, reducing the number of eQTL tests from 30,034 annotated PN40024 transcripts to only 16 DE transcripts (Supplementary Table S3). An eQTL scan for loci predicting expression of these 16 genes identified two candidate NB-LRR genes (VIT_15s0046g02730 and VIT_15s0046g02800) as differentially expressed and significantly associated to the Rda1 locus. We also identified one NB-LRR gene physically distant on chromosome 15 (according to the PN40024 reference) and three genes on other chromosomes regulated by the Rda1 locus early after D. ampelina inoculation: a mannitol dehydrogenase, the cytochrome P450 monooxygenase CYP78A3p and the auxin-responsive protein IAA17 (Table 5). While the eQTL hits located on Rda1 can point out two candidate R-genes for this locus, hits from other loci could be related to reactions triggered by ETI.