Typology of wines in touch with environmental factors of terroirs and grapevine. Application to the Chinon vineyard

According to the vintage, it may be difficult for vine growers to make a decision regarding the type of wine in relation with the soils. The present work aims at proposing typology of wines to the Chinon growers, as a basis for reflection on the wine type in relation with the terroir units and the vintage water supply conditions.
In order to bring out factors associated to a wine structure, a first classification was established thanks to a multiple factorial analysis (MFA), taking into account three qualitative variables resulting from a survey on 506 cultural units of the Chinon vineyard. This first classification was then linked to a second one obtained through an ascendant hierarchical classification (AHC) carried out on an experimental network of the INRA-UVV unit of Angers (49-France). This network of 14 plots, distributed on different terroir units in the Chinon, Bourgueil and Saumur AOC, was monitored for physiological and meteorological data over the 2002-2005 period. The AHC used the data for a humid year (2004) and a dry year (2005). For each year, the experimental plots were grouped into three classes according to their pedoclimatic profiles.
By crossing the two classifications it was possible to elaborate a typology of the Chinon wines in relation with the environmental factors of the terroir units and the water supply conditions of the vintage.
This method, based only on two reference years and a wine typology for the Cabernet franc variety, was successful for analyzing the conditions for the elaboration of a given type of Chinon wine in relation to a precise cartography of the terroir units. This prospective process needs to be generalized.