Vineyard landscape laboratories: methodology of management of wine landscapes at territory scale

Abstract

Viticultural landscape management is a challenge as the issue is to manage the landscape ” from a perspective of sustainable development, to ensure the regular upkeep of a landscape, so as to guide and harmonize changes which are brought about by social, economic and environmental processes” (European Landscape Convention, 2000). And the local wine actors are waiting great support on how to proceed with the establishment of a consistent and quality approach on viticultural landscapes. The “Vineyard Landscape Laboratories” project funded by FranceAgriMer, has mobilized four major wine regions involved in landscape approaches in order to participate in the creation and testing of a common methodology of management, transferable and generalizable. And the demarches taken by Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bourgogne, Organisme de Défense et de Gestion Costières de Nîmes, ODG Côtes du Rhône and by Union des Vignerons du Beaujolais were classified qualitatively according to their position in a management process based on the work of the Council of Europe, and completed by surveys on the object of the demarches, stage of implementation and on strategy. The construction of the methodology has been tested on the four laboratories in different situations and enriched by each situation, with two simultaneous objectives of evaluating this methodology on the ongoing demarches of the laboratories and of self-evaluation of the initial projects of each laboratory. A vineyard landscape management guide was produced together with an on line self-diagnosis.