Climate and wine quality: Chianti in Tuscany

Vintages consensus rankings are used to investigate climate patterns influencing good and poor quality vintages for Bordeaux reds in France and Tuscany Chianti in Italy. The good and poor ranked vintages have quite contrasting climate anomalies and differentiated weather patterns throughout the growing season. For both cases of reds in Bordeaux and Tuscany the growing season temperatures and heat units were significantly higher for the good, compared with the poor ranked vintages. For Tuscany specific weather types (WT) are associated with each group. The European lessons have applicability to other Countries situation where diverse climatic patterns occur across different wine growing districts and to implement forecast systems specific for grapes.