Climate change vs Wine industry in the Emilia-Romagna: Assessment of the climate change, influence on wine industry and mitigation techniques

The first part of the PhD thesis was focused on the assessment of the climate change in the Emilia-Romagna, whereas considered research periods were during the both, past (1961–2015 for the entire Emilia-Romagna; 1953–2013 for the ‘Romagna Sangiovese’ appellation area) and future decades (2018–2027, 2011–2040 and 2071–2100 for the entire Emilia-Romagna). Two types of the spatially interpolated meteorological data for past periods (high resolution and low resolution), spatially interpolated climate data with corrected bias from Regional Climate Models for future periods, diverse statistical methods (Mann-Kendall test, Pettitt test etc.) and appropriate bioclimatic indices developed particularly for the climatic classification of viticulture region were used to identify climatic suitability to cultivate grapes in the Emilia-Romagna. Additionally, a real case study was performed with data from seven Romagna’s wineries in order to identify the potential impact of the climate change on the Sangiovese berry sugar content and grape yield. The second part of the PhD thesis was focused on the development of mitigation techniques that may be used to face the impact of climate change in the future decades. In particular, late winter pruning was applied to cv. Sangiovese grapes aiming to reduce concentration of total soluble solids in berries. Additionally, dealcholization and acidification of Chardonnay wines were achieved by addition of must from unripe Chardonnay grapes and utilization of non-Saccharomyces yeast strains. Obtained results in the present PhD thesis may help viticulturists and winemakers to further develop wine industry by choosing climatologically appropriate grape varieties or researchers to further develop mitigation techniques which will allow sustainable grape production in the Emilia-Romagna. The third part was related to the development of an analytical method to evaluate wine parameters affected by climate change and mitigation strategies, same as to analytical profiling of potential additives to face climate change.