Terroir 2014 banner
IVES 9 IVES Conference Series 9 Mapping natural terroir units using a multivariate approach and legacy data

Mapping natural terroir units using a multivariate approach and legacy data

Abstract

This work aimed at setting up a multivariate and geostatistical methodology to map natural terroir units of the viticultural areas at the province scale (1:125,000). 

The methodology was based upon the creation of a GIS storing all the viticultural and oenological legacy data of experimental vineyards (1989-2009), the long term climate data, the digital elevation model, the soilscapes (land systems) and the legacy data of the soil profiles. 

The environmental parameters related to viticulture, selected by an explorative PCA, were: elevation, mean annual temperature, mean soil temperature, annual precipitation, clay, sand and gravel content of soils, soil water availability, redoximorphic features and rooting depth. 

The selected variables, spatialized by means of geostatistical methods, were used for a k-means clustering aimed to map the Natural Terroir Units (NTU). The vineyard of the province of Siena was subdivided into 9 NTU. 

Both the historical DOCG (Chianti Classico, Brunello di Montalcino and Nobile di Montepulciano) and the others DOC were mainly characterized by three or four NTU, whereas the wider Chianti and Chianti Colli senesi DOCG was mainly constituted by seven NTU.

DOI:

Publication date: July 31, 2020

Issue: Terroir 2014

Type: Article

Authors

Simone Priori, Roberto Barbetti, Giovanni L’Abate, Pierluigi Bucellia, Paolo Storchib, Edoardo A.C. Costantinia 

Consiglio per la Ricerca e la Sperimentazione in Agricoltura, CRA-ABP, Research Center of Agrobiology and Pedology, Firenze, Italy. / b Consiglio per la Ricerca e la Sperimentazione in Agricoltura, CRA-VIC, Research Unit of Viticulture, Arezzo, Italy. 

Contact the author

Keywords

GIS, kriging, PCA, clustering, soils, Sangiovese, wine, Tuscany, Italy

Tags

IVES Conference Series | Terroir 2014

Citation

Related articles…

A procedure for the zoning of grapevine in a hilly area (Collio, North-Eastern Italy) using simulation models and GIS

The zoning of grapevine in a hilly area should consider the variability of the environmental characteristics due to topography. Since soil and climate data are usually available as point data

Callinikos: the new white table grapeseedless variety for biological produce

This paper presents is the create, the study and amplographic description the new seedless grape variety «Callinicos» was created by P. Zamanidis at the Athens Vine Department

Controlling Wine Oxidation: Effects of pH on Key Reaction Rates

Acidity is often touted as a predictor of wine ageability, though surprisingly few studies have systematically investigated the chemical basis for this claim.

Exploring the prevalence of esca-induced leaf symptoms in French vineyards and the role of climate: a national scale analysis

Esca, a severe trunk disease affecting vineyards, is caused by fungal pathogens that induce wood necrosis and decay, leaf symptoms, yield losses, and potentially a rapid death of the vine. The prevalence of this disease varies across years, regions, cultivars, and plot ages. Despite its significance in understanding and predicting dieback risk in different vineyards, the role of climate in trunk diseases remains a relatively unexplored research area. While some studies have demonstrated the impact of certain climatic conditions on the prevalence of the disease, they often focus on a limited number of plots and yield conflicting results.We conducted a statistical analysis, using a Bayesian approach on a national database comprising prevalence data of esca from over 500 different plots in France, spanning the years 2003 to 2022 and encompassing various cultivars.

Climate ethnography and wine environmental futures

Globalisation and climate change have radically transformed world wine production upsetting the established order of wine ecologies. Ecological risks and the future of traditional agricultural systems are widely debated in anthropology, but very little is understood of the particular challenges posed by climate change to viticulture which is seen by many as the canary in the coalmine of global agriculture. Moreover, wine as a globalised embedded commodity provides a particularly telling example for the study of climate change having already attracted early scientific attention. Studies of climate change in viticulture have focused primarily on the production of systematic models of adaptation and vulnerability, while the human and cultural factors, which are key to adaptation and sustainable futures, are largely missing. Climate experts have been unanimous in recognising the urgent need for a better understanding of the complex dynamics that shape how climate change is experienced and responded to by human systems. Yet this call has not yet been addressed. Climate ethnography, coined by the anthropologist Susan Crate (2011), aims to bridge this growing disjuncture between climate science and everyday life through the exploration of the social meaning of climate change. It seeks to investigate the confrontation of its social salience in different locations and under different environmental guises (Goodman 2018: 340). By understanding how wine producers make sense of the world (and the environment) and act in it, it proposes to focus on the co-production of interdisciplinary knowledge by identifying and foreshadowing problems (Goodman 2018: 342; Goodman & Marshall 2018). It seeks to offer an original, transformative and contrasted perspective to climate change scenarios by investigating human agency -individual or collective- in all its social, political and cultural diversity. An anthropological approach founded on detailed ethnographies of wine production is ideally placed to address economic, social and cultural disruptions caused by the emergence of these new environmental challenges. Indeed, the community of experts in environmental change have recently called for research that will encompass the human dimension and for more broad-based, integrated through interdisciplinarity, useful knowledge (Castree & al 2014). My paper seeks to engage with climate ethnography and discuss what it brings to the study of wine environmental futures while exploring the limitations of the anthropological environmental approach.