The southern Côtes-du-Rhône vineyard shows a significant variety of ecological facets over the Lower Rhone Valley. Intending to characterize such a variety of “terroir “called vineyard situations, a spatial approach based on identification of soil landscapes has been initiated. It was applied to a limited zone in part of the Valréas sedimentary basin, where local climate is likely homogeneous. Spatial distribution modelling of soil cover combine existing soil and geological data, using land survey, stereoscopic aerial photograph examination, satellite image processing. Map features are digitized within a Geographic Information System (GIS). 21 synthetic map units integrate 15 variables referring to soil, geomorphology, lithology, stratigraphy, vegetation, land form. The vine-growing terroirs, regarded as parts of agricultural lands consistent with both soil landscapes and harvestlwine response, are defined by clustering of the soil landscape units according to multivariate analysis. Terroir mapping is examined and validated in relation to wine response through Grenache harvest composition and its frequency over 1982-1996. Discriminant analysis is performed on the 1982-1996 must compositions of 14 sites related to 4 terroirs units. It shows that discrimination of the terroir units may be realized with the following variables: sugar content converted to expectable alcohol percentage (TAP, %), pH, titrable acidity (AT, g H2SO4/l.), weight of 200 berries (g/l), TAP/AT ratio.
Authors: EMMANUELLE VAUDOUR (1, 2), M.C. GIRARD (1), L.M. BREMOND (2), L. LURTON (3)
(1) UER Dynamique des Milieux et Organisations Spatiales
Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon – 78850 Thiverval-Grignon (France)
(2) Syndicat Général des Vignerons Réunis des Côtes-du-Rhône
6, rue des Trois Faucons – 84000 Avignon (France)
(3) Comité Interprofessionnel des Vins d’AOC Côtes-du-Rhône et de la Vallée du Rhône Service technique, 2260, route du Grès, 84100 Orange (France)
Keywords: soil landscapes, vine-growing terroirs, harvest composition frequency, GIS