Modeling of vine agronomic practices in the context of climate change

Abstract

Global climate change affects regional climates and hold implications for viticulture worldwide. Many studies have addressed the issue of the impact of climate change on viticulture in most wine regions worldwide, yet few studies are devoted to observing and simulating both climate and climate change at the “terroir” scale (local scale). However, phenological variations as well as differences in grapes/wine quality are often observed over short distances in a wine-region, which are related to local characteristics (slope, soil, seasonal climate …). This paper proposes a modeling approach to simulate behavior changes in wine grower activities and to analyze the impact of changing strategies in wine production. Two experiments were conducted in the small wine appellation grand cru Quart de Chaume (Coteaux du Layon, Loire Valley, France) and in the wine estate in Mendoza (Bodega Alta Vista) where all of the methodology (from the implementation of the knowledge database to the analysis of the first simulation) is presented. Given that this prototype is still under development, several research perspectives are discussed.