Why climate change will not dramatically decrease viticultural suitability in main wine-producing areas by 2050

Abstract

The paper is a Letter arguing about a paper of Hannah et al. (1) who recently published a comprehensive study showing substantial impacts of climate change on viticultural suitability, leading to potential ecological issues. That expansion of viticulture into new areas can lead indeed to a decrease in biodiversity and an increase in water use for irrigation might lead to major freshwater conservation impacts. However, the alarming statement that suitability for winegrowing of main wine-producing areas worldwide will dramatically decrease over the next 40 y. is wrong. There is a major methodological flaws in ref. 1, mostly linked to (i) the misuse of bibliographical data to compute suitability index, (ii) underestimation of adaptations of viticulture to warmer conditions, and (iii) the inadequacy of the monthly time step in the suitability approach