Analysis of climate spatio-temporal variability in the Conegliano-Valdobbiadene DOCG wine district

Abstract

Local climate characterization is fundamental in terroir description, yet global change perspectives raise questions about its feasibility, since temporal stability cannot be no more assumed for the forthcoming years.
The objective of this work was to gain a better understanding of the climatic spatio-temporal variability of a grapevine growing area, and how this has changed during recent times.
Using as a case-study the Conegliano-Valdobbiadene DOCG wine district in North-Eastern Italy, we developed a methodology to downscale daily mean air temperature from the European Climate Assessment gridded dataset (E-OBS), to derive daily temperature surfaces at 500m spatial resolution. This allowed to analyse how the spatio-temporal variability affected grapevine phenology in the last 60 years.
The main results showed that, respect to the 1950-1979 period, the average Winkler index between 1980 and 2008 showed a +184 °C increase, with little spatial variation, as well as for the estimated dates for the main phenological events, which showed a generalized anticipation of about 2 to 5 days. More pronounced changes were observed on the interannual variability, which showed increases in both the average values and pattern of distribution.

DOI:

Publication date: December 3, 2021

Issue: Terroir 2010

Type: Article

Authors

G. Fila, F. Meggio, L.M. Veilleux, A. Pitacco

University of Padova, Department of Environmental Agronomy and Crop Science I-35020 Legnaro (PD), Italy

Contact the author

Keywords

Grapevine, Climate Change, Temperature, Phenology, Downscaling, Spatial Interpolation

Tags

IVES Conference Series | Terroir 2010

Citation

Related articles…

Armenia: historical origin of domesticated grapevine

The Armenian highlands are located on the northern border of western asia and stretch up to the caucasus from the north. Throughout human history, country has played an important role in connecting the civilizations of europe and the near east. The recent large-scale study about the dual domestication origin and evolution of grapes approved that in the Armenian highlands human and grapevine stories are interlaced through centuries and roots of grapevine domestication are found deep in the pleistocene, ending 11.5 thousand years ago. Findings of this study confirmed that glacial episodes distinguish wild grapes into eastern and western ecotypes around 200-400 ka.

Control of bacterial growth in carbonic maceration winemaking through yeast inoculation

Controlling the development of the bacterial population during the winemaking process is essential for obtaining correct wines[1]. Carbonic Maceration (CM) wines are recognised as high-quality young wines. However, due to its particularities, CM winemaking implies a higher risk of bacterial growth: lower SO2 levels, enrichment of the must in nutrients, oxygen trapped between the clusters… Therefore, wines produced by CM have slightly higher volatile acidity values than those produced by the destemming/crushing method[2].

Considerations about the concept of “terroir”: definition and research direction

On exposera la distinction et la relation entre: “Etude des milieux”, “Zonage Petit ou Zonage Technique ou Sub Zonage”, “Grand Zonage”, “Délimitation des zones productives” ex.

Do natural wines differ from conventionally-produced wines?

In recent years, consumer awareness for consuming healthy and environmental sustainability products has considerably increased [1]. In an ever-changing and highly competitive environment such as the wine sector, production of wines without sulfites, or biodynamic, organic or vegan wines, has experienced an important increase to meet the new needs of consumers [2,3]. Beyond these categories of regulated products, a new concept has emerged: natural wines (NW), for which there is not an established definition or legal regulation. Rather, producers have a personal idea of naturalness under the premise of applying minimal intervention from grape to wine production [4]. In this context, it is hypothesized that self-defined natural wines are different from conventional wines (CW) in their sensory and chemical profile. The predicament of natural wine is based on anecdotic declarations and assumes that minimal intervention guarantees the production of wines with organoleptic properties able to express the “terroir” and thus promote wine diversity, plurality and sensory typicity against the risk of standardization of CW.

Observed climatic trends in South African wine regions and potential implications for viticulture

Irrigation of vineyards is a matter of controversial arguments at areas of high quality wine production. Besides, the effects of the water in the plant are closer related to the water availability than to the irrigation regime.