Effects of future climate change on grape quality: a case study for the Aglianico grape in Campania region, Italy

The Precision Viticulture (PV) is defined “as a management system that is information and technology based, is site specific and uses one or more of the following sources of data: soils, vigour, nutrients, pests, moisture, and yield among others, for optimum profitability, sustainability, and protection of the environment” (OIV, 2018, in process). The elements mentioned in the definition are an important part of the terroir components. The terroir is a tool In Viticulture, it is the analysis and study unit, and the variability of a certain situation can be due to any difference in every element or property of each factor that constitutes it, including the management.The soil and its management are those that bring the most variability to terroir.

Maturation of wine on lees (often referred as sur lie) is a common practice applied by many winemakers around the world. In the past this method was applied mainly on white and/or sparkling wine production but recently also to red wine production. In our experiment, we matured red wine on wine lees of two origins: a) Light wine lees, collected after the completion of the alcoholic fermentation, b) Heavy lees, collected after the completion of the malolactic fermentation. The lees were free of off-odors and were added in the red wine in percentage 3% and 8%, simulating common winemaking addition. The maturation lasted in total six months and samples were collected for analysis after one, three and six months. During storage the lees were stirred.

The aim of this study was to determine how artificial shading influenced berry development and anthocyanin accumulation in ‘Cabernet sauvignon’. Opaque polypropylene boxes were applied to grape bunches over three different developmental stages.

The current climate changes are directly threatening the balance of the vineyard at harvest time. The maturation period of the grapes is shifted to the middle of the summer, at a time when radiation and air temperature are at their maximum. In this context, the implementation of corrective practices becomes problematic. Unfortunately, our knowledge of the climate effect on the quality of different grape varieties remains very incomplete to guide these choices. During the Innovine project, original experiments were carried out on Syrah to study the combined effects of normal or high air temperature and varying degrees of exposure of the berries to the sun. Berries subjected to these different conditions were sampled and analyzed throughout the maturation period. Several quality characteristics were determined, including anthocyanin content. The objective of the experiments was to investigate which climatic determinants were most important for anthocyanin accumulation in the berries. Temperature and irradiance data, observed over time with a very thin discretization step, are called functional data in statistics. We developed the procedure SpiceFP (Sparse and Structured Procedure to Identify Combined Effects of Functional Predictors) to explain the variations of a scalar response variable (a grape berry quality variable for example) by two or three functional predictors (as temperature and irradiance) in a context of joint influence of these predictors. Particular attention was paid to the interpretability of the results. Analysis of the data using SpiceFP identified a negative impact of morning combinations of low irradiance (lower than about 100 μmol m−2 s−1 or 45 μmol m−2 s−1 depending on the advanced-delayed state of the berries) and high temperature (higher than 25oC). A slight difference associated with overnight temperature occurred between these effects identified in the morning.

The Cape of Storms (also known as Cape of Good Hope) is renowned for harbouring a multitude of shipwrecks due to the inherent treacherous coastline and blistering storms.