Affiliation(s)
1. Key Laboratory for Meteorological Disaster Monitoring and Early Warning and Risk Management of Characteristic Agriculture in Arid Regions, China Meteorological Administration, Ningxia Key Laboratory for Meteorological Disaster Prevention and Reduction, Ningxia Meteorological Science Institute, Yinchuan 750002, China
2. Institute of Viti-viniculture, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China
ABSTRACT
Terroir plays an important role in wine grape
production and good wine making. Among all the aspects of terroir in a given
region, climate, soil and variety are the most important ones. The goal of this
study was to evaluate these
three aspects of terroir in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region of China, with a
focus on the Helan Mountain
East. Based on historical weather data during the period 1981 to 2016 from 22
meteorological stations in the research area, the climatic indices were
derived, with which the growable zone for wine grape cultivation in the research
area was identified. By synthesizing the climatic indices and soil type data,
stepwise and optimization methods were used to divide the growable zone into
optimal, suitable, near-suitable and unsuitable zones for the six prevailing
wine grape varieties. In the analysis, the six prevailing wine grape varieties
include two white wine grape varieties of “Chardonnay” and “Riesling” and four
red wine grape varieties of “Cabernet Sauvignon”, “Merlot”, “Pinot Noir” and
“Grenache Noir”. With the Geographic Information System (ArcGIS) software, the
geographical distributions of these terroir suitability zonings were mapped in
the research area according to a small grid simulation model. The results
showed that the growable zone for wine grapes was mainly focused in most of the
northern and central parts of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. This particular
zone was suitable for the typical red wine varieties like late-maturing
“Grenache Noir”, medium-to-late
maturing “Cabernet Sauvignon”, medium-maturing
“Merlot” and early-maturing “Pinot Noir”. In particular, the optimal zone for these four red wine varieties was
centered in Xixia county of Yinchuan city, Pigeon Hill of Qingtongxia city and
Baima Township of Zhongning County. For the two early-to-medium maturing white
wine varieties of “Riesling” and “Chardonnay”, the optimal and suitable zones
were in the cool area of the central arid zone and the Qingshui River
tributary.
KEYWORDS
Wine grape, terroir, Helan Mountain East, China.
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