Cool-Climate Viticulture

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Wine

By Jancis Robinson

Published 2006

  • About

cool-climate viticulture, and warm-climate viticulture, are indefinite terms, depending on the speaker’s or writer’s viewpoint, but are probably applied most usefully to the coolest and warmest thirds of the climatic or geographic range used successfully for growing wine grapes. Intermediate climate viticulture (see below) lies between, while true hot-climate viticulture produces mainly table grapes and drying grapes, and cannot, in general, produce high-quality wine grapes of any kind. The term cold-climate viticulture is sometimes used to refer to those wine regions that experience winter freeze and where winter injury of vines can dominate viticultural practices.