Australia’s Wine Future: A Climate Atlas

Traditional drought tolerant varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Monastrell, and Syrah [1], have been used as parents in the grapevine breeding program initiated by the Instituto Murciano de Investigación y Desarrollo Agrario y Medioambiental (IMIDA) in 1997 [2]. This work presents the results of evaluating three new genotypes obtained from crosses between ‘Monastrell’ and ‘Cabernet Sauvignon’ (MC16 and MC80) and between ‘Monastrell’ and ‘Syrah’ (MS104), comparing their performance under conditions of water scarcity and high temperatures with that of their respective parental varieties. For this purpose, the six genotypes were cultivated under controlled irrigation conditions (60% ETc) and rainfed conditions.

In viticulture sector to find new tools for pest management has become an urgent necessity. Hence, grapevines cultivation has high production rate demand and to meet the intensive market request, a massive use of pesticides is often required. In addition to the environmental problems associated with large use of chemicals, there is an increasing number of consumers which are asking for

C-Glucosidic ellagitannins, which are the main polyphenolic compounds in oak heartwood, are extracted by wine during aging in oak barrels. Although such maturing of alcoholic beverages in oak barrels is a multi-centennial practice, very little is known on the impact of these ellagitannins on the organoleptic properties of red wine. The objectives of the present investigation were (i) to isolate oak ellagitannins and to hemisynthesize some made-in-wine flavano-ellagitannins, such as acutissimin A; (ii) to analyse their concentration ranges depending on the cultivar area and (iii) to evaluate their sensory impact on the basis of their human threshold concentrations and dose/response relationships in different types of solutions.

Rapid processing of grapes after harvest has always been considered essential for achieving a balanced sensory wine profile.

Climate change challenges differently wine growing systems, depending on their biophysical, sociological and economic features. Therefore, there is a need to locally design and evaluate adaptation strategies combining several technical options, and considering the local opportunities and constraints (e.g. water access, wine typicity). The case study took place in a typical and heterogeneous Mediterranean vineyard of 1,500 ha in the South of France. We developed a participatory modeling approach to (1) conceptualize local climate change issues and design spatially explicit adaptation strategies with stakeholders, (2) numerically evaluate their effects on phenology, yield and irrigation needs under the high-emissions climate change scenario RCP 8.5, and (3) collectively discuss simulation results. We organized five sets of workshops, with in-between modeling phases. A process-based model was developed that allowed to evaluate the effects of six technical options (late varieties, irrigation, water saving by reducing canopy size, adjusting cover cropping, reducing density, and shading) with various distributions in the watershed, as well as vineyard relocation. Overall, we co-designed three adaptation strategies. Delay harvest strategy with late varieties showed little effects on decreasing air temperature during ripening. Water constraint limitation strategy would compensate for production losses if disruptive adaptations (e.g. reduced density) were adopted, and more land got access to irrigation. Relocation strategy would foster high premium wine production in the constrained mountainous areas where grapevine is less impacted by climate change. This research shows that a spatial distribution of technical changes gives room for adaptation to climate change, and that the collaboration with local stakeholders is a key to the identification of relevant adaptation. Further research should explore the potential of adaptation strategies based on soil quality improvement and on water stress tolerant varieties.