Soil-plant water status and wine quality: an physically based approach to terroir analysis

The ZOViSA Project (Viticultural zoning at farm scale) tests a new physically oriented approach to terroir analysis,strongly rooted on hydropedology and aiming to achieve a better use of environmental features with respect to plantrequirement and wine production. The physics of our approach is defined by the use of soil-plant-atmosphere simulationmodels which apply physically-based equations to describe the soil hydrological processes and solve soil-plant waterstatus.The project is conducted in two farms of southern Italy (Del Monte-Ponte(BN) and Quintodecimo-Mirabella Eclano(AV)) located in the Campania region and devoted to quality wines production (Aglianico and Falanghina DOC). Inone site (Quintodecimo farm) the soil spatial distribution was recognized; then the soil-plant water status was monitoredin two experimental plots from two different soils. Daily soil water variables (through TDR probes and tensiometers),crop development (biometric and physiological parameters) and daily climate variables (temperature, solar radiation,rainfall, wind) were monitored.The SWAP model was calibrated and applied in the two experimental plots to estimate soil-plant water status indifferent crop phenological stages. The effects of crop water status on crop response and wine quality was evaluated intwo different pedo-systems, comparing the crop water stress index with both: crop physiological measurement (leaf gasexchange, chlorophyll-a fluorescence, leaf water potential, chlorophyll content, LAI measurement), grape bounchesmeasurement (berry weight, sugar content, titrable acidity, etc.) and wine quality (aromatic response). Finally apreliminary "spatial application" of the model was carried out and different terroirs defined.