The “Geoviticulture Multicriteria Climatic Classification (MCC) System” was developed to characterize the climate of the wine producing regions of the world. It is a method which determines three climatic indexes and uses them to classify a location. A worldwide database of these indexes in wine producing regions was created using this methodology and the System was made available as a web site (http://www.cnpuv.embrapa.br/ccm). The site presents general information about the Geoviticulture MCC System, describes the methodology, allows searches in the database and the calculation of climatic indexes. Searches may be worldwide or limited to a specific country, and search criteria allow limiting the class for each of the three indexes. Search results are presented as a table specifying location, index values, index classes and the source of the data used. In order to make it easier to visually identify locations with similar climate, an orthogonal color scheme was used for the three indexes. In tropical regions, where grapes may be harvested year-round, a separate index was included for each month of potential harvest. The site includes a reference list and, in some cases, PDF files with the complete papers. The site will be constantly updated as new data becomes available for insertion in the database. The web site is currently available in Portuguese, French and English, and its intention is to make the data available for whichever purpose users may need it.
Authors: Flávio BELLO FIALHO (1) and Jorge TONIETTO (1)
(1) Researcher, Embrapa Uva e Vinho, Caixa Postal 130, 95700-000 – Bento Gonçalves, Brazil
Emails: bello@cnpuv.embrapa.br; tonietto@cnpuv.embrapa.br
Keywords: climate, database, viticulture