Phenology, thermal requirements and maturation of the SR 0.501-17 wine grape hybrid cultivated in contrasting climate

Nemea region is the largest POD zone in Greece. Agiorgitiko (Vitis vinifera L. cv.) is the most cultivated variety in Greece with significant wine potential.

In Spain, the wide diversity of red grapevine varieties represents an advantage when choosing the most suitable one for cultivation based on different climatic conditions, without implying a loss of their enological potential.

Originaire du bassin lémanique, le chasselas est l’emblème de la viticulture suisse. Pour autant, les surfaces de chasselas n’ont cessé de diminuer, passant de 6’585 hectares en 1986 à près de 3’600 aujourd’hui, reflet d’une baisse de consommation. Une récente étude a cherché à comprendre les raisons de ce désintérêt. Réalisée dans

Many high quality Open Source scientific applications have been available for a long time. Some of them have proved to be particularly useful for carrying out the usual activities involved in viticultural research projects, such as statistical analyses (including spatial analyses), GIS work, database management (possibly integrated with statistical and spatial analysis) and even “low-level” often highly time-consuming activities (e.g. repetitive task on text files).

Agriculture, natural resource management and the production and sale of products such as wine are increasingly data-driven activities. Thus, the use of remote and proximal crop and soil sensors to aid management decisions is becoming commonplace and ‘Agtech’ is proliferating commercially; mapping, underpinned by geographical information systems and complex methods of spatial analysis, is widely used. Likewise, the chemical and sensory analysis of wines draws on multivariate statistics; the efficient winery intake of grapes, subsequent production of wines and their delivery to markets relies on logistics; whilst the sales and marketing of wines is increasingly driven by artificial intelligence linked to the recorded purchasing behaviour of consumers. In brief, there is data everywhere!

Opinions will vary on whether these developments are a good thing. Those concerned with the ‘mystique’ of wine, or the historical aspects of terroir and its preservation, may find them confronting. In contrast, they offer an opportunity to those interested in the biophysical elements of terroir, and efforts aimed at better understanding how these impact on vineyard performance and the sensory attributes of resultant wines. At the previous Terroir Congress, we demonstrated the potential of analytical methods used at the within-vineyard scale in the development of Precision Viticulture, in contributing to a quantitative understanding of regional terroir. For this conference, we take this approach forward with examples from contrasting locations in both the northern and southern hemispheres. We show how, by focussing on the vineyards within winegrowing regions, as opposed to all of the land within those regions, we might move towards a more robust terroir zoning than one derived from a mixture of history, thematic mapping, heuristics and the whims of marketers. Aside from providing improved understanding by underpinning terroir with data, such methods should also promote improved management of the entire wine value chain.