Web Mining for Modelling Climate Effects on Wine Quality

Abstract

IntroductionClimate change has the potential to impact on all forms of agriculture and vegetation and the impact is predicted to be inconsistent across the globe. Thus the polarising debates on climate change, the phenomenon that has become to be famously known as 'global warming' or 'global climate change', has increased scientific and commercial interest immensely in this topic and predictions relating to it. The potential influence of climate variation on viticulture and enology is considered to be dramatic because grapevine varieties are among the most sensitive cultivated crops that thrive only under niche climate and environmental conditions. Historical viticulture records evidence the fact that the winemaker ability to produce premium quality wine is highly influenced by the environment and climate apart from the grapevine variety itself as described by a famous Mediterranean concept "Terrior x cultiva". Major variations in climate can even force shifts in whole wine regions. Minor or seasonal variations generally result in differences in quality among vintages. The historical data on the factors relating to climate and wine quality is proving invaluable in comparing contemporary data with the past and it is essential for any forecasting or prediction over time (Hansen, et al., 2001: Jones, 2005. Literature reviewed for this research reveals that in the past viticulturists and winemakers introduced and developed subtle changes to cultivation practices and winemaking processes to turn the annual (or vintage-to-vintage) climate change effects, favourable for winemaking. This has been occurring over centuries to turn climate variation effects to grapevine growing advantage in an endeavour to produce finer wine labels. On the other hand, major shifts in cultivation methods in whole wine-producing regions have occurred in the past and it appears that all these happened in order to produce grapes with a higher percentage of sugar but without comprising the other aroma and colour pro-protein compounds in the berry ripening process. These characteristics of wine quality are considered to be the principal factors relating to climate for viticulture regions throughout the world. Irrigation, frost, wind and solar influences are also major factors in grape production and therefore, primary determinants of wine quality (Jones, 2005). In view of the above facts, approaches based on modern knowledge discovery methods are now being increasingly investigated to improving our understanding on climate and environmental influences on wine quality. Sections 2 and 3 illustrate on some of the literature and our related 20 www.intechopen.com Climate Change and Variability 390 research in modelling wine quality using sensory data in both text and numeric formats. Section 3 details on the other novel methods being experimented at the Geoinformatics Research Centre (GRC), Auckland University of Technology (AUT) in New Zealand, to modelling the blended quantitative and qualitative grapevine phenology data that determines the sugar ...