Terroir 1996 banner
IVES 9 IVES Conference Series 9 Comportamiento de la variedade “Touriga Nacional” en la Región Demarcada del Douro, en diferentes condiciones climáticas y edáficas

Comportamiento de la variedade “Touriga Nacional” en la Región Demarcada del Douro, en diferentes condiciones climáticas y edáficas

Abstract

A Região Demarcada do Douro, oferece uma diversidade geográfica, climática e biológica (grande número de castas em cultivo) extremamente grande e complexa, originando vinhas de tipo e qualidades distintos de acordo com as situações (“Terroirs”). Por tal motivo, foi criado em 1948, um método de pontuação para classificação das vinhas, em função de diversos parâmetros pedo-climáticos, geográficos e biológicos o que permitiu classificar as diferentes parcelas segundo classes distintas de qualidade.
Tal conjunto de informações e conhecimentos já adquiridos, constitui no entanto, uma primeira aproximação de uma definição mais detalhada do conceito de zonagem, ou seja, a relação casta-“terroir” não está ainda suficientemente estudada e definida o que origina frequentemente dificuldades na escolha dos encepamentos que optimizem a qualidade dos vinhos em função da melhor repartição das castas pelas parcelas, cujas características conferem a cada casta a sua melhor adaptação.
O trabalho em curso, iniciou-se em 1998, com a marcação de 50 parcelas de vinha da casta Touriga Nacional distribuídas pela Região Demarcada do Douro. A todas elas foi feita uma caracterização geográfica (altitude, exposição, declive), pedo-climática (análise de solo e registo de dados meteorológicos) e vitícola (forma de condução, porta-enxerto, idade, sistematização do terreno e embardamento, densidade de plantação). Anualmente, em todas estas parcelas geo-pedo-climáticamente distintas, com altitudes dos 100m aos 400m, exposições de NE, SE, SW, E, S e N, declives de 5% a 45%, sistematização em Vinha ao alto e Patamares, condução em Guyot e Cordão, procede-se a determinações no coberto vegetal (do pintor á vindima), controlo de maturação (de 10 em 10 dias), análise de mosto, rendimento e peso de lenha de poda, pretendendo-se com a evolução deste trabalho, contribuir para um melhor conhecimento da casta Touriga Nacional, em diferentes situações edafo-climáticas e culturais tão pronunciadas e frequentes na Região Demarcada do Douro e, contribuir para uma análise mais minuciosa da relação casta com o “terroir” e produto final (mosto).

DOI:

Publication date: February 24, 2022

Issue: Terroir 2000

Type: Article

Authors

Ana Alexandra Oliveira, Nuno Magalhães

Departamento de Fitotécnia e Engenharia Rural – Viticultura
Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Apartado 202, 5001-911 Vila Real, Portugal

Contact the author

Keywords

Douro, Touriga Nacional, Zonagem vitícola

Tags

IVES Conference Series | Terroir 2000

Citation

Related articles…

Variety and climatic effects on quality scores in the Western US winegrowing regions

Wine quality is strongly linked to climate. Quality scores are often driven by climate variation across different winegrowing regions and years, but also influenced by other aspects of terroir, including variety. While recent work has looked at the relationship between quality scores and climate across many European regions, less work has examined New World winegrowing regions. Here we used scores from three major rating systems (Wine Advocate, Wine Enthusiast and Wine Spectator) combined with daily climate and phenology data to understand what drives variation across wine quality scores in major regions of the Western US, including regions in California, Oregon and Washington. We examined effects of variety, region, and in what phenological period climate was most predictive of quality. As in other studies, we found climate, based mainly on growing degree day (GDD) models, was generally associated with quality—with higher GDD associated with higher scores—but variety and region also had strong effects. Effects of region were generally stronger than variety. Certain varieties received the highest scores in only some areas, while other varieties (e.g., Merlot) generally scored lower across regions. Across phenological stages, GDD during budbreak was often most strongly associated with quality. Our results support other studies that warmer periods generally drive high quality wines, but highlight how much region and variety drive variation in scores outside of climate.

Mapping and tracking canopy size with VitiCanopy

Understanding vineyard variability to target management strategies, apply inputs efficiently and deliver consistent grape quality to the winery is essential. However, despite inherent vineyard variability, the majority are managed as if they are uniform. VitiCanopy is a simple, grower-friendly tool for precision/digital viticulture that allows users to collect and interpret objective spatial information about vineyard performance. After four years of field and market research, an upgraded VitiCanopy has been created to achieve a more streamlined, technology-assisted vine monitoring tool that provides users with a set of superior new features, which could significantly improve the way users monitor their grapevines. These new features include:
• New user interface
• User authentication
• Batch analysis of multiple images
• Ease the learning curve through enhanced help features
• Reporting via the creation of colour maps that will allow users to assess the spatial differences in canopies within a vineyard.
Use-case examples are presented to demonstrate the quantification and mapping of vineyard variability through objective canopy measurements, ground-truthing of remotely sensed measurements, monitoring of crop conditions, implementation of disease and water management decisions as well as creating a history of each site to forecast quality. This intelligent tool allows users to manage grapevines and make informed management choices to achieve the desired production targets and remain profitable.

VINIoT – Precision viticulture service

The project VINIoT pursues the creation of a new technological vineyard monitoring service, which will allow companies in the wine sector in the SUDOE space to monitor plantations in real time and remotely at various levels of precision. The system is based on spectral images and an IoT architecture that allows assessing parameters of interest viticulture and the collection of data at a precise scale (level of grape, plant, plot or vineyard) will be designed. In France, three subjects were specifically developed: evaluation of maturity, of water stress, and detection of flavescence dorée. For the evaluation of maturity, it has been decided first to work at the berry scale in the laboratory, then at the bunch scale and finally in the vineyard. The acquisition of the spectral hyperstal image as well as the reference analyzes to measure the maturity, were carried out in the laboratory after harvesting the berries in a maturity monitoring context. This work focuses on a case study to predict sugar content of three different grape varieties: Syrah, Fer Servadou and Mauzac. A robust method called Roboost-PLSR, developed in the framework of this work (Courand et al., 2022), to improve prediction model performance was applied on spectra after the acquirement of hyperspectral images. Regarding the evaluation of water stress, to work with a significant variability in terms of water status, it has been worked first with potted plants under 2 different water regimes. The facilities have allowed the supervision of irrigation and micro-climatic conditions. The regression models on agronomic variables (stomatal conductance, water potential, …) are studied. To detect flavescence dorée, the experimental plan has consisted of work at leaf scale in the laboratory first, and then in the field. To detect the disease from hyper-spectral imaging, a combination of multivariate curve resolution-alternating least squares (MCR-ALS) and factorial discriminant analysis (FDA) was proposed. This strategy proved the potential towards the discrimination of healthy and infected leaves by flavescence dorée based on the use of hyperspectral images (Mas Garcia et al., 2021).

Rapid damage assessment and grapevine recovery after fire

There is increasing scientific consensus that climate changeis the underlying cause of the prolonged dry and hot conditions that have increased the risk of extreme fire weather in many countries around the world. In December 2019, a bushfire event occurred in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia where 25,000 hectares were burnt and in vineyards and surrounding areas various degrees of scorching and infrastructure damage occurred. The ability to coordinate and plan recovery after a fire event relies on robust and timely data. The current practice for measuring the scale and distribution of fire damage is to walk or drive the vineyard and score individual vines based on visual observation. The process is time consuming, subjective, or semi-quantitative at best. After the December 2019 fires, it took many months to access properties and estimate the area of vineyard damaged. This study compares the rapid assessment and mapping of fire damage using high-resolution satellite imagery with more traditional ground based measures. Satellite imagery tracking vineyard recovery in the season following the bushfire is being correlated to field assessments of vineyard productivity such as canopy health and development, fertility and carbohydrate storage. Canopy health in the seasons following the fires correlated to the severity of the initial fire damage. Severely damaged vines had reduced canopy growth, were infertile or had very low fertility as well as lower carbohydrate levels in buds and canes during dormancy, which reduced productivity in the seasons following the bushfire event. In contrast, vines that received minor damage were able to recover within 1-2 years. Tools that rapidly and affordably capture the extent and severity of damage over large vineyard area will allow producers, government and industry bodies to manage decisions in relation to fire recovery planning, coordination and delivery, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their response.

Grapevine yield-gap: identification of environmental limitations by soil and climate zoning in Languedoc-Roussillon region (south of France)

Grapevine yield has been historically overlooked, assuming a strong trade-off between grape yield and wine quality. At present, menaced by climate change, many vineyards in Southern France are far from the quality label threshold, becoming grapevine yield-gaps a major subject of concern. Although yield-gaps are well studied in arable crops, we know very little about grapevine yield-gaps. In the present study, we analysed the environmental component of grapevine yield-gaps linked to climate and soil resources in the Languedoc Roussillon. We used SAFRAN data and IGP Pays d’Oc wine yields from 2010 to 2018. We selected climate and soil indicators proving to have a significant effect on average wine yield-gaps at the municipality scale. The most significant factors of grapevine yield were the Soil Available Water Capacity; followed by the Huglin Index and the Climatic Dryness Index. The Days of Frost; the Soil pH; and the Very Hot Days were also significant. Then, we clustered geographical zones presenting similar indicators, facilitating the identification of resources yield-gaps. We discussed the number of zones with the experts of IGP Pays d’Oc label, obtaining 7 zones with similar limitations for grapevine yield. Finally, we analysed the main resources causing yield-gaps and the grapevine varieties planted on each zone. Mapping grapevine resource yield-gaps are the first stage for understanding grapevine yield-gaps at the regional scale.