VHF

Impact

Getting resilience from managing diversity

Description

The wine markets have been increasingly highlighting those produced from old vineyards, associating designations such as "old vines" with distinctive quality wine, rare and with character. The traditional vineyards of the Douro Demarcated Region (post-phylloxera terraces) today reveal important viticultural, environmental, and quality assets, becoming a model of resilience that is important to reinterpret in light of modern knowledge and technology in the creation of new vineyards. Indeed, various empirical observations and some recent studies seem to show that the combination of grape varieties that generate high genetic diversity, cultivated in high-density planting systems, along with good management of ecological infrastructures such as dry stone walls, results in greater resistance to various biotic stresses (pests and diseases) and abiotic stresses (climate). In addition to this resilience, there is also an observed gain in sensory complexity resulting from all the interactions between the different grape varieties in the vineyard during winemaking and in the final wine. The VHF project thus seeks to contribute to the environmental, social, and economic future of the Douro Demarcated Region by reinterpreting the traditional system of planting vineyards on terraces with dry stone walls, combined with the latest technologies, aiming at their adaptation to the region's natural conditions, present and future climatic challenges, and the identity of its wines.