Portuguese grapevine varieties as a solution to tackle climate change challenges on wines

Abstract

Portugal has about 250 grapevine varieties, but they could only be useful if tested in vineyards and on winemaking trials. It’s not far from the truth if we say that, besides this diversity, most of the Portuguese wines are made using less than 10% of this potential. AVIPE is a grapevine growers association from Portugal and its mains works is on extension service and on applied research. On a climate change scenario, several challenges have been addressed to farmers but also regarding technical support. On a task to mitigate this scenario, but also on trying to add more diversity to wines, AVIPE is testing some varieties on microvinifications and organizing tastings with academia, companies and winemakers.

It has been possible to tackle the lack of acidity, due to quicker ripeness, with Portuguese varieties, producing balanced and fresh wines with complex aromas. Similar situation is faced with red varieties. The access to several ampelographic fields, from farmers and institutions, makes this work possible and running. AVIPE is also working on the analytical characterization of different varieties for a better decision support system. In the near future, this work will try to tackle the sunburn effects on grapes quality, finding varieties with more tannins and color, but also new combinations on pet-nats and less alcohol wines.