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From Pinot to Xinomavro in the world's future wine-growing regions

Nature Climate Change volume 8, pages 29–37 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Predicted impacts of climate change on crops—including yield declines and loss of conservation lands—could be mitigated by exploiting existing diversity within crops. Here we examine this possibility for wine grapes. Across 1,100 planted varieties, wine grapes possess tremendous diversity in traits that affect responses to climate, such as phenology and drought tolerance. Yet little of this diversity is exploited. Instead many countries plant 70–90% of total hectares with the same 12 varieties—representing 1% of total diversity. We outline these challenges, and highlight how altered planting practices and new initiatives could help the industry better adapt to continued climate change.

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Fig. 1: Current planted diversity of wine grapes.
Fig. 2: Origins of global winegrape production in 2010.
Fig. 3: Growing regions projected temperature change (coloured by quantiles) and estimated varietal restrictions.
Fig. 4: Variation across varieties in two traits relevant for climate change.
Fig. 5: Trait-informed framework for selecting winegrape varieties in different regions under future climate regimes.

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks to C. Marchal and S. Dedet, who helped with data from INRA Domaine de Vassal Grape Collection (France), S. Schaffer-Morrison who helped build the dataset of geolocations of the world’s wine-growing regions, E. Forrestel who helped format the crush report data from California, and to T. J. Davies, whose comments improved the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA

    E. M. Wolkovich & I. Morales-Castilla

  2. Organismic & Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    E. M. Wolkovich & I. Morales-Castilla

  3. Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), US 1116 AGROCLIM, Avignon, France

    I. García de Cortázar-Atauri

  4. Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS), P.O. Box 170, Lund, Sweden

    K. A. Nicholas

  5. Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), UMR 1334 AGAP, Montpellier, France

    T. Lacombe

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  1. E. M. Wolkovich
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Contributions

All authors contributed ideas and edited the manuscript. In addition, E.M.W. wrote the manuscript, T.L. helped with data for Figs. 1,2 and 4. E.M.W. and I.M.-C. designed Figs. 3 and 5 together and EMW designed and produced Figs. 1,2 and 4.

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Correspondence to E. M. Wolkovich.

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Supplementary discussion, Data and methods, Supplementary Figures 1–6, Supplementary References.

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Wolkovich, E.M., García de Cortázar-Atauri, I., Morales-Castilla, I. et al. From Pinot to Xinomavro in the world's future wine-growing regions. Nature Clim Change 8, 29–37 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-017-0016-6

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