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Impact of vineyard topography on the quality of Chablis wine
Author(s) -
Biss A.J.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
australian journal of grape and wine research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.65
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1755-0238
pISSN - 1322-7130
DOI - 10.1111/ajgw.12433
Subject(s) - vineyard , terroir , wine , wine tasting , environmental science , geography , physical geography , archaeology , biology , food science
Background and Aims ‘Terroir’ is a term used to describe how climate, microclimate, geology, soil, topography and vitivinicultural history affect the taste and aroma of a wine produced from a vineyard. This study investigates one aspect of terroir—the topography—for Chablis, a white wine‐producing region of France. Methods and Results A digital elevation model was used to produce topographic data for the vineyard areas of Chablis (‘Climats’). Correlation and regression analyses were used to compare topography with 6850 wine scores extracted from CellarTracker, an online crowdsourced database of wine‐tasting notes. Conclusions No strong evidence was found that topography plays a role in determining differences in wine quality within Chablis. There is, however, a reason to think that slope gradient may have an influence on wine quality, but the evidence is insufficient, and data limitations prevented further analysis. Significance of the Study The findings suggest that, provided a vineyard falls within a range of topographic, soil and climatic parameters, it is possible for a good winemaker to produce high‐quality wine no matter where the land is located and that, provided certain thresholds are not crossed, the influence of topography is too small to be detected in the final wine.