The challenging issue of climate change for sustainable grape and wine production

Abstract

Grape production, wine quality, climatic conditions and geographical origins are closely related, making ongoing climate change a quite challenging issue for this economic sector. How will climatic conditions be affected locally ? How will local climate interact with topography, resulting in high climatic variability at vineyard scale ? How will vine performance, berry composition and wine quality be modified ? And what can be done to adapt vine growing and wine making practices to these new conditions ? These are the key questions the wine industry has to address in the following decades. In this context, it is obvious that this issue will require the development of close collaboration between actors, including producers and wine makers, extension services, marketing, policy makers and scientists. For the scientific community, addressing the climate change issue requires multidisciplinary studies and new scientific approaches.