A within-vineyard meteorological network: looking for vineyard-scale climate variability

Abstract

Mesoclimate modeling of a vineyard may have important implications, mainly, for management of wine-growing strategies. Within-vineyard measurements should represent a significant advantage in capturing mesoclimate variability versus using public weather stations, usually sited in distant locations.

Climate data collection and analysis, from 2010 up to 2012, through a network of weather stations (3 per vineyard) was performed in two well distinct wine regions of Portugal – Vinho Verde and Douro, each displaying very different climates and geo-morphologies. Vineyard-scale climate variability was analyzed to measure spatial coherence evaluated for different climate parameters (temperature, rainfall, wind and relative humidity).

Despite an intuitive presumption that higher geo-morphological variability would imply higher meteorological variability, our results showed otherwise, displaying close climate variability in two very different geo-morphological situations: the Douro vineyard with high variation in acreage, altitude, slope and aspect against the Vinho Verde vineyard set in smaller acreage on a gentle slope with less variation for the same characteristics.

The present work intends to demonstrate the relevance of implementing a within-vineyard meteorological network and validate the siting of each individual weather station to enable future assessment of vineyard-scale climate variability models, using GIS.