Our publications come from cross-disciplinary research that relies on a team of ecologists, climatologists, crop modelers, and experts in winegrape diversity and viticulture. Each publication takes years of work.
In the papers below, learn more about the importance of wine variety diversity in mitigating the effects climate change may bring to the wine industry.
Upcoming: Dangers of limited winegrape diversity in the Anthropocene – Interactive figure of RxS studies.
Diversity buffers winegrowing regions from climate change losses (Morales-Castilla et al. 2020, PNAS):
Figure 1. Global maps of winegrowing. (A) Current winegrowing regions (B) Modeled predictions of cultivar diversity (total number of varieties) under our 0 ◦C reference scenario—all colored pixels show areas predicted as climatically suitable (Calculating Climatic Suitability). (C–E) Predicted effects of climate change on cultivar diversity and distribution under 2 ◦C warming (C), 4 ◦C warming (D), and cultivar turnover.
Access Publication (PDF) || Access Data
Why varietal diversity is critical to winegrowing’s warmer future (Wolkovich & Morales-Castilla 2019, Wine and Viticulture Journal)
Figure 1. As tempertures across the globe have risen significantly since the early 1980s, harvest times have shifted earlier. Here we show (left) global temperature anomalies (the change in global surface temperature relative to 1951-1980 average temperatures) and harvest times (relative to 31 August) averaged across France, and (right) for the Bordeaux region. Temperature anomalies data from NASA-GISS and BEST; harvest data from Daux et al. (2012), Cook and Wolkovich (2016). Note that harvest data ends in 2007, while we show climate data through 2017.
Access Publication (PDF)
From Pinot to Xinomavro in the world’s future wine-growing region (Wolkovich et al. 2018, Nature Climate Change)
Fig. 1. Current planted diversity of wine grapes. The number of varieties (‘Vars n’) by region, and the percentage of each region’s hectares planted with common 12 varieties (‘% Intl’, called international varieties) varies across the globe, with Europe growing the greatest number of different varieties (largest circles) and New World wine regions growing the greatest proportion of international varieties (darkest circles).
Access Publication (PDF)
Phenological diversity provides opportunities for climate change adaptation in winegrapes (Wolkovich et al. 2017, Journal of Ecology)
Access Publication (PDF) || Access Data
Climate change decouples drought from early winegrape harvests in France (Cook and Wolkovich 2016, Nature of Climate Change)
Figure 1. Grape harvest date anomalies (GHD-Core). Left panel: time series of grape harvest date anomalies, composited from the Alsace, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne 1, Languedoc (Lan), Lower Loire Valley (LLV), Southern Rhone Valley, and Switzerland at Lake Geneva regional harvest date time series in the Daux data set4 . All anomalies are in units of day of year, calculated relative to the average date from 1600–1900. Right panel: normalized histograms of GHD-Core harvest date anomalies from 1600–1980 (blue) and 1981–2007 (red)
Access Publication (PDF) || Access Data
* Reprints are provided solely for single-user, non-commercial use.
Additional Publications:
E.M. Wolkovich. Feb 2023. New Terroir: Climate Resiliency Through Variety Diversity. (non-peer-reviewed) (pdf)
I. Morales-Castilla & E.M. Wolkovich. 2021. Diversity may save wines from climate change.The Science Breaker. https://doi.org/10.25250/thescbr.brk501. (non-peer-reviewed) (article)
E.M. Wolkovich & I. Morales-Castilla. 2019. Climate change: Why varietal diversity is critical to wine- growing’s warmer future. Wine & Viticulture Journal 34(1). (non-peer-reviewed) (pdf)
