Modelling Chablis vintage quality in response to inter-annual variation in weather

Biss, A.J.; Ellis, R. H.

doi:10.20870/oeno-one.2021.55.3.4709

Cited by 11 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…by the Fridays for future initiative) Climate change and its consequences for viticulture (e.g. Ausseil et al 2021 ; Bernath et al 2021 ; Biss and Ellis 2021 ): In particular white wine cultivars lose the typicality of their wine style but red wine cultivars could be the winners in cool climate regions Extreme weather events and effects on biotic and abiotic stress. …”

Section: Future Needs: New Resistant Cultivars For Viticulturementioning

confidence: 99%

A cool climate perspective on grapevine breeding: climate change and sustainability are driving forces for changing varieties in a traditional market

Töpfer

Trapp

2022

Theor Appl Genet

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A multitude of diverse breeding goals need to be combined in a new cultivar, which always forces to compromise. The biggest challenge grapevine breeders face is the extraordinarily complex trait of wine quality, which is the all-pervasive and most debated characteristic. Since the 1920s, Germany runs continuous grapevine breeding programmes. This continuity was the key to success and lead to various new cultivars on the market, so called PIWIs. Initially, introduced pests and diseases such as phylloxera, powdery and downy mildew were the driving forces for breeding. However, preconceptions about the wine quality of new resistant selections impeded the market introduction. These preconceptions are still echoing today and may be the reason in large parts of the viticultural community for: (1) ignoring substantial breeding progress, and (2) sticking to successful markets of well-known varietal wines or blends (e.g. Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling). New is the need to improve viticulture´s sustainability and to adapt to changing environmental conditions. Climate change with its extreme weather will impose the need for a change in cultivars in many wine growing regions. Therefore, a paradigm shift is knocking on the door: new varieties (PIWIs) versus traditional varieties for climate adapted and sustainable viticulture. However, it will be slow process and viticulture is politically well advised to pave the way to variety innovation. In contrast to the widely available PIWIs, competitive cultivars created by means of new breeding technologies (NBT, e.g. through CRISPR/Cas) are still decades from introduction to the market.

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Section: Future Needs: New Resistant Cultivars For Viticulturementioning

confidence: 99%

A cool climate perspective on grapevine breeding: climate change and sustainability are driving forces for changing varieties in a traditional market

Töpfer

Trapp

2022

Theor Appl Genet

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“…To establish the climatic suitability of areas of the UK for Chardonnay viticulture with the potential to produce high-quality still wine, we used the "Chablis vintage model" (Equation 1; Biss and Ellis, 2021), henceforth the Model. This Model explained 57.1 percent of the variability in Chablis vintage quality between 1963 and 2018 and performed well in differentiating Poor (score < 6) from Good (score 6-8) and Excellent (score > 8) vintages.…”

Section: The Chablis Vintage Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…UK climate projections for the period 2040 to 2059, using the RCP 4.5 emissions scenario, were obtained from the Met Office UKCP18 dataset (Met Office, n.d.[a]) for each administrative region; see Fung et al (2018) (Biss and Ellis, 2021).…”

Section: Uk Climate Projectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Chablis vintage model is an empirical model of interannual variation in Chablis vintage quality (Biss and Ellis, 2021). It estimates the vintage quality of still Chardonnay wine as a function of mean temperature from April to September (curvilinear relation, maximum score at 16-17 °C), mean minimum temperature in September (cool night index (CNI) during ripening; negative relation), and total rainfall from June to September (from around flowering and fruitset to harvest; negative relation).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Weather potential for high-quality still wine from Chardonnay viticulture in different regions of the UK with climate change

Biss

Ellis

2022

OENO One

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UK viticulture is benefitting from climate change with an increase in vineyard area and a move towards French grapevine varieties, primarily Chardonnay and Pinot noir, to produce sparkling wine. Doubt remains, however, as to how good UK still wine can be from these varieties. The simple Chablis vintage model uses only three climatic indices: mean temperature from April to September, mean minimum temperature in September (cool night index) and total rainfall from June to September. It was applied to the UK for the periods 1981–2000, 2010–2019 and, with climate change projections, to 2040–2059 to locate sites in the UK with the climate potential to produce high-quality Chardonnay still wine. Weather data for 1981–2000 and 2010–2019 were taken from the Met Office’s HadUK-Grid at a resolution of 5 × 5 km, and climate projections for 2040–2059 were derived from UKCP18, using intermediate emission scenario RCP 4.5 at the 5th, 50th and 95th percentile probabilities. Recent and current climatic conditions throughout most of the UK were unsuitable for sustainable production of high-quality still Chardonnay wine (only 0.2 to 1.8 % of UK land area suitable), but model scores corresponded with high-quality Chardonnay still wine production observed in some regions of England in 2018. Under the 5th percentile RCP 4.5 projection for 2040–2059, climatic conditions are similar to 2010–2019 and generally unsuitable for sustainable, high-quality still Chardonnay wine production. Under the median and 95th percentile projections for 2040–2059, however, South East England and East of England have the potential for high-quality still Chardonnay wine production in an average year, and Central England also with the 95th percentile projection. Overall, climate change is expected to benefit the production of high-quality still Chardonnay wine in the medium term, with up to 42.4 % of UK land possibly climatically (but not necessarily agronomically) suitable by mid-century. The model does not account for extreme events, however, and there is uncertainty over future inter-annual weather variability, and so the sustainability of high-quality still wine production. Planting Chardonnay clones suitable for both sparkling and still wines in the most-suitable areas of England would provide flexibility and so resilience.

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“…The effects of individual weather variables on grape-and thus wine quality, have been subject to many attempts of quantification, particularly so in Bordeaux (France) where researchers can draw on an abundant corpus of data. The average temperature during the grapevine (Vitis vinifera) growing season, from April to September, has been identified as the main driver of wine quality in Bordeaux before the year 2000 (Jones and Davis, 2000;Ashenfelter, 2008), as is the case in other regions (Byron and Ashenfelter, 1995;Haeger and Storchmann, 2006;Corsi and Ashenfelter, 2019;Biss and Ellis, 2021). Indeed, low temperatures are linked with low sugar levels, which often coincide with poor vintage ratings in Bordeaux (Gambetta and Kurtural, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting wine prices based on the weather: Bordeaux vineyards in a changing climate

Roucher

Aristodemou

Tietze

2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Each grapevine cultivar needs a certain amount of cumulated heat over its growing season for its grapes to ripen properly. In the 20th century’s Bordeaux vineyard, the average growing season temperature was not always sufficient, thus higher than usual summer temperatures were on average linked with higher grape and wine quality. However, over the last 60+ years, global warming gradually increased the vineyard’s temperatures up to the point where additional growing season heat is not required anymore, and can even become detrimental to wine quality: hence the positive effect of higher-than-usual summer temperatures has progressively vanished. In this context, it is unknown whether any weather variable is still a good predictor of a vintage’s quality. Here we provide a predictive model of wine prices, based only on weather data. We establish that it predicts a vintage’s long-term quality more accurately than a world-class expert rating this same vintage in the year following its production. We first design a corpus of features suited to the grapevine lifecycle to extract from them the most powerful drivers of wine quality. We then build a predictive model that leverages Local Least Squares kernel regression (LLS) to factor in the time-varying nature of climate impact on the grapevine. Hence, it is able to outperform previous models and even provides a better predictive ranking of successive vintages than the grades given by world-famous wine critic Robert Parker. This predictive power demonstrates that weather is still a very efficient predictor of wine quality in Bordeaux. The two main features on which this model is built—following grapevine’s phenological calendar and using an LLS architecture to let the input-output relationship vary over time—could help model other agricultural systems amidst climate change and adaptation of production processes.

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Modelling Chablis vintage quality in response to inter-annual variation in weather

Cited by 11 publications

References 43 publications

A cool climate perspective on grapevine breeding: climate change and sustainability are driving forces for changing varieties in a traditional market

A cool climate perspective on grapevine breeding: climate change and sustainability are driving forces for changing varieties in a traditional market

Weather potential for high-quality still wine from Chardonnay viticulture in different regions of the UK with climate change

Predicting wine prices based on the weather: Bordeaux vineyards in a changing climate

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