Terroir 2020 banner
IVES 9 IVES Conference Series 9 Podcasts – Terroir Congress 2020

Podcasts – Terroir Congress 2020

Abstract

All about “Australian grapevine stories”

Trailer: Australian grapevine stories

Narrator Andrew Caillard MW explores the wonderful and surprising story of grape vines in Australia. It starts with the ambitions of Georgian England and takes the listener on a four-part journey through the Victorian age, Federation and contemporary times. This easy listening, unstuffy and well-researched four-part series was recorded especially for the 13th Terroir Congress.

 

This trailer introduces the podcasts and acknowledges the key people behind the project.

Part 1: 1788 to 1820s – A race to the other side of the world

Ambitions for a wine industry in New South Wales were caught up in the British Government’s aspirations of expanding trade routes and wealth creation. From 1788 to the 1820s, colonial wine was a cottage industry but the pioneers from Sir Joseph Banks in London to John Macarthur and nurseryman Thomas Shepherd in Sydney believed that Australia could become the France of the Southern Hemisphere. But the first years of settlement were not without political troubles and serious economic challenges.

Part 2: 1820s to 1855 – Convictions and transportation

There were many new importations of vitis vinifera during the 1820s to 1855. The most famous was the remarkable collection of grape vines imported into New South Wales by James Busby in 1832. William Macarthur of Camden Nurseries becomes a highly influential figure supplying many of Australia’s earliest pioneers with vine stock material for planting in the Australian colonies. This was also the dawn of the steam age, the beginning of the gold rush (1851) and the Universal Exhibition in Paris (1855).

Part 3: 1855 to 1960s – Grand dreams and boom-bust-boom

Fortunes were mixed after the great promise of the 1860s and early 1870s. Many of Australia’s greatest 19th Century vineyards were planted during this time. Economic, social and agricultural challenges hampered progress. The arrival of Phylloxera in Victoria in 1875 was met with a scorched earth policy. But South Australia’s quarantine laws protected the vast plantings of grape vines especially around Adelaide, McLaren Vale, Barossa and the Clare Valleys. Australian Burgundy boomed in the 1880s and 1890s. After the Second World War plant breeding programmes were introduced to improve colonial vinestock material, while only a trickle of new clones and selections were permitted into Australia.

Part 4: 1970s to Today – A step back into the future

The golden period of modern wine was enabled by the dreams and hard work of past generations. While 19th Century vinestock reflects the romance and dramas of the Georgian Victorian ages, new material is required to build on those extraordinary efforts. The pursuit for ideal chardonnay clones led to the arrival of 19th Century Californian vinestock material into Australia. In the meantime, alternative varieties might not be that alternative given their history in Australia. Australia’s colonial vinestock heritage is one of the four corner stones of our modern wine industry.

© graphical sources: Part 3: Henschke Wines – Dragan Radocaj, Part 4: Leeuwin Estate, Margaret River

Publication date: March 26, 2021

Issue: Terroir 2020

Type : Podcast

Tags

IVES Conference Series | Podcast | Terroir 2020

Related articles…

Using δ13C and hydroscapes as a tool for discriminating cultivar specific drought response

Measurement of carbon isotope discrimination in berry juice sugars at maturity (δ13C) provides an integrated assessment of water use efficiency (WUE) during the period of berry ripening, and when collected over multiple seasons can be used as an indication of drought stress response. Berry juice δ13C measurements were carried out on 48 different varieties planted in a common garden experiment in Bordeaux, France from 2014 through 2021 and were paired with midday and predawn leaf water potential measurements on the same vines in a subset of six varieties. The aim was to discriminate a large panel of varieties based on their stomatal behaviour and potentially identify hydraulic traits characterizing drought tolerance by comparing δ13C and hydroscapes (the visualisation of plant stomatal behaviour as a response to predawn water potential). Cluster analysis found that δ13C values are likely affected by the differing phenology of each variety, resulting in berry ripening of different varieties taking place under different stress conditions within the same year. We accounted for these phenological differences and found that cluster analysis based on specific δ13C metrics created a classification of varieties that corresponds well to our current empirical understanding of their relative drought tolerances. In addition, we analysed the water potential regulation of the subset of six varieties (using the hydroscape approach) and found that it was well correlated with some δ13C metrics. Surprisingly, a variety’s water potential regulation (specifically its minimum critical leaf water potential under water deficit) was strongly correlated to δ13C values under well-watered conditions, suggesting that base WUE may have a stronger impact on drought tolerance than WUE under water deficit. These results give strong insights on the innate WUE of a very large panel of varieties and suggest that studies of drought tolerance should include traits expressed under non-limiting conditions.

Phenological characterization of a wide range of Vitis Vinifera varieties

In order to study the impact of climate change on Bordeaux grape varieties and to assess the adaptation capacities of candidates to the grape varieties of this wine region to the new climatic conditions, an experimental block design composed of 52 grape varieties was set up in 2009 at the INRAE Bordeaux Aquitaine center. Among the many parameters studied, the three main phenological stages of the vine (budburst, flowering and veraison) have been closely monitored since 2012. Observations for each year, stage and variety were carried out on four independent replicates. Precocity indices have been calculated from the data obtained over the 2012-2021 period (Barbeau et al. 1998). This work allowed to group the phenological behaviour of the grapevine varieties, not only based on the timing of the subsequent developmental stages, but also on the overall precocity of the cycle and the total length of the cycle between budburst and veraison. Results regarding the variability observed among the different grape varieties for these phenological stages are presented as heat maps.

Permanent cover cropping with reduced tillage increased resiliency of wine grape vineyards to climate change

Majority of California’s vineyards rely on supplemental irrigation to overcome abiotic stressors. In the context of climate change, increases in growing season temperatures and crop evapotranspiration pose a risk to adaptation of viticulture to climate change. Vineyard cover crops may mitigate soil erosion and preserve water resources; but there is a lack of information on how they contribute to vineyard resiliency under tillage systems. The aim of this study was to identify the optimum combination of cover crop sand tillage without adversely affecting productivity while preserving plant water status. Two experiments in two contrasting climatic regions were conducted with two cover crops, including a permanent short stature grass (P. bulbosa hybrid), barley (Hordeum spp), and resident vegetation under till vs. no-till systems in a Ruby Cabernet (V. vinifera spp.) (Fresno) and a Cabernet Sauvingon (Napa) vineyard. Results indicated that permanent grass under no-till preserved plant available water until E-L stage 17. Consequently, net carbon assimilation of the permanent grass under no-till system was enhanced compared to those with barley and resident vegetation. On the other hand, the barley under no-till system reduced grapevine net carbon assimilation during berry ripening that led to lower content of nonstructural carbohydrates in shoots at dormancy. Components of yield and berry composition including flavonoid profile at either site were not adversely affected by factors studied. Switching to a permanent cover crop under a no-till system also provided a 9% and 3% benefit in cultural practices costs in Fresno and Napa, respectively. The results of this work provides fundamental information to growers in preserving resiliency of vineyard systems in hot and warm climate regions under context of climate change.

Short-term relationships between climate and grapevine trunk diseases in southern French vineyards

[lwp_divi_breadcrumbs home_text="IVES" use_before_icon="on" before_icon="||divi||400" module_id="publication-ariane" _builder_version="4.19.4" _module_preset="default" module_text_align="center" module_font_size="16px" text_orientation="center"...

Impact of climate change on the viticultural climate of the Protected Designation of Origin “Jumilla” (SE Spain)

Protected Designation of Origin “Jumilla” (PDO Jumilla) is located in the Spanish provinces of Albacete and Murcia, in the South-eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula, where most of the models predict a severe impact of climate change in next decades. PDO Jumilla covers an area of 247,054 hectares, of which more than 22,000 hectares