Terroir 2010 banner
IVES 9 IVES Conference Series 9 Successive surveys to define practices and decision process of winegrowers to produce “Vins de Pays Charentais” in the Cognac firewater vineyard area

Successive surveys to define practices and decision process of winegrowers to produce “Vins de Pays Charentais” in the Cognac firewater vineyard area

Abstract

[English version below]

Le vin est un des produits finis que l’on obtient à partir de raisins. La vigne réagit à de nombreux facteurs environnementaux et son comportement est directement influencé par les pratiques culturales. L’expression du terroir dans les vins résulte de ces interactions, à la fois au cours du cycle végétal et au cours de la vinification. Pour identifier les pratiques agricoles, viticoles et œnologiques des viticulteurs et pour classer leurs effets sur les vins d’Anjou l’UMT Vinitera a proposé une méthode basée sur des enquêtes successives. Cet article vise à expliquer comment la méthodologie mise au point par l’équipe de l’UMT Vinitera sur le vignoble Anjou Village Brissac (AVB) a été transférée dans le vignoble Cognaçais.
En effet, le vignoble des Charentes est une aire de production d’eau-de-vie de Cognac très étendue : près de 80 000 hectares de vignes parmi lesquels seules quelques parcelles (environ 2000 hectares) sont destinées à la production de vin sous appellation Vin de Pays Charentais (VPC). Les itinéraires techniques spécifiquement pratiqués sur le vignoble VPC n’avaient jamais été étudiés jusqu’à présent et demeuraient méconnus. La première partie du travail a consisté à échantillonner environ 50 des 800 producteurs de VPC sur le vignoble Cognaçais. Ensuite un questionnaire a été élaboré pour recenser les différentes pratiques employées en viticulture et en œnologie ainsi que les motivations des agriculteurs pour produire du vin dans la région. Les résultats de cette première enquête démontrent que la structure d’exploitation et le traitement de la vendange sont des critères distinguant 3 groupes de vignerons VPC, avec différents niveaux d’implication technique sur leurs vignes et leur terroir.
Une seconde enquête est ensuite réalisée et chacun des ces groupes s’est vu adresser un questionnaire spécifique. L’objectif est de distinguer les pratiques agronomiques employées d’une part pour le VPC et d’autre part pour l’eau-de-vie de Cognac. Par des séries de questions fermées successives les producteurs sont amenés à expliquer pourquoi leurs itinéraires techniques varient d’un produit à l’autre et d’un terroir à l’autre (processus dichotomique). Ainsi cette enquête nous permet de comprendre comment un vigneron structure l’arbre de décision qui définit ses pratiques agronomiques et œnologiques pour le Vin de Pays Charentais.

Wine is one of the final products made from grapes. Vine reacts to numerous environmental factors and its behavior is directly modified by winegrower actions. Terroir expression in wines ensues from those interactions during both agronomical and enological process. To identify winegrowers’ agricultural, viticultural and enological practices and to classify their effects on wines in the French region of Anjou, UMT Vinitera suggested a method based on successive surveys. This paper aims at showing how the methodology submitted by UMT Vinitera team on Anjou Village Brissac (AVB) vineyard has been transferred to the Cognac area.
Actually, the Charentes vineyard is a huge Cognac firewater production area : almost 80000 hectares of vine among which only few plots (about 2000 hectares) are set aside for growing wine, named “Vin de Pays Charentais” (VPC). Technical itineraries specifically practiced on VPC vineyard had never been studied before and were quite little-known in this region.
First part of the work consisted in sampling 50 of nearly 800 farmers who are producing VPC in the Cognac vineyard. This wine is making barely always up a smaller part of the income than the Cognac eau-de-vie. Then a questionnaire was built to register the various cultural methods used to grow vine and wine (both for Cognac firewater and VPC) and also farmer motivations to produce specifically VPC in the area. Results of this first stage of surveys show that farm structure and grape harvest treatment are criteria that distinguish 3 groups of VPC winegrowers, with different level of technical influence on their vineyards and terroir.
In a second stage of surveys, each of these groups was addressed a specific questionnaire. The objective was to segregate agronomical practices used on one hand for the VPC and on the other hand for the Cognac firewater. Afterwards, by sensible series of closed questions (dichotomous process), farmers were lead to explain why their technical itineraries change from one product to the other and from one terroir to the other. This survey so allows us to understand how a winegrower builds the decision tree which defines his specific agronomical and enological actions for the VPC.

 

DOI:

Publication date: December 3, 2021

Issue: Terroir 2010

Type: Article

Authors

BERNARD F.M. (1), WINTERHOLER R. (1) & THIOLLET-SCHOLTUS M. (2)

(1) IFV, Institut Français de la Vigne et du vin, 15, Rue Pierre Viala, 16130, Segonzac, France
(2) INRA UEVV, UMT Vinitera, 42, Rue Georges Morel, BP 60057, 49071 Beaucouzé, France

Contact the author

Keywords

Vin de Pays Charentais, Itinéraire technique, Enquêtes, Processus dichotomique
Vin de Pays Charentais, Technical itinerary, Surveys, Dichotomous process

Tags

IVES Conference Series | Terroir 2010

Citation

Related articles…

Red wine astringency: correlations between chemical and sensory features

Astringency is a crucial sensory attribute typically described as the drying and/or puckering sensation occurring after the consumption of tannin-rich foods and beverages. In this study, thirty-seven red wines from different varieties, origins and styles were evaluated, analyzing both chemical and sensory features. Principal Component Analysis was used for dimensionality-reduction and for correlating selected chemical parameters against astringency. The results showed that tannin content was the most important chemical parameter influencing overall astringency but more clearly the dryness sub-quality, followed by pH, titratable acidity and alcohol content.

An analysis of wine geographical indications from the perspective of the theory of industrial organizations: what are the trade off?

From Porto and then through Bordeaux, Champagne and Bourgogne, wine geographical indications (gi) were the driving models for this form of protection of distinctive signs for collective use. Many studies present the benefits of recognizing a gi for a given region, the challenges of its implementation, as well as the possibilities of promoting territorial development.

Spectral characterisation of fungal diseases on Vitis vinifera leaves

Aims: The aims of this study were to (1) detect alterations in the reflectance spectra of vines with fungal diseases, (2) map these alterations, and (3) determine the best wavelengths which may be used as early indicators of fungal diseases in vines.

Estudio de la adaptación y del comportamiento productivo y enológico de variedades blancas foráneas en la zona vitícola del Penedés

Estudio comparativo del comportamiento de ocho variedades de viníferas blancas en el Penedés, injertadas sobre los portainjertos 41-B y 110-R.
Se describen los comportamientos

Determination of target compounds in cava quality using liquid chromatography. Application of chemometric tools in data analysis

According to the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), Cava is protected in the quality sparkling wines made by the traditional Champenoise method were the wine realize a second fermentation inside the own bottle1. Geographical and human peculiarities of each bottle are the main way for the final quality2. The aim of this study is to find correlations and which target compounds are the most representative of the quality of two different grape varieties, Pinot Noir and Xarel·lo. The quality of these two types of grapes is being studied for each variety by a previous classification of the vineyard made by the company who provided the samples (qualities A,B,C,D, being A the better one and D the worst one). The target compounds studied are organic acids and polyphenols. The methodology for the determination of organic acids is HPLC-UV/vis and for some of them the enzymatic methodology.