Preliminary results of the eliminary results of the characterizarion of Argentine wines and the foreseeing of the future effects of global warming on the quality and style

Abstract

The few studies that relate the chemical composition and the organoleptic characteristics of Argentine wines with the origin show that climate is a very important factor. Climate change threat the sustainability of the quality of our wines as we know them. This work is part of a project which goal is to study the differential characteristics of the wines of different regions of Argentina and understand the effect of temperature and other climatic factors in the wine. This knowledge should help us to predict the effects of climate change for the immediate future. A group of wineries, that participate in the Technical Committee of Bodegas de Argentina, collaborates with this study in which 24 parcels of 5 wine regions located in 3 provinces of Argentina. Vineyards use vertical trellising system and follow and standard management protocol. The grapes were microvinificated with a standard protocol. The resulting wines were characterized by a tasting panel and the resulting data has been correlated with the growing season temperature (GST). In 2017 the volatile and no volatile compounds of the wines will be also measured. The project in the future will include the study of other grape varieties and more wine regions of Argentina. The first results show an important effect of temperature in Malbec. In warmer regions Malbec wines are more spacy, less fruity and with lower concentration of phenolic compounds, color and mouth body.