Turn climate information into value for the Mediterranean wine sector: the MED-GOLD potential

MED-GOLD is an EU-funded Horizon 2020 project (https://www.med-gold.eu/) whose main objective is to demonstrate the proof-of-concept for climate services in agriculture by developing case studies for three staples of the Mediterranean food system: grapes, olives and durum wheat.

MED-GOLD will propose climate services deploying forecast information at seasonal (next 6 months) and long-term (next 30 years). This information will be provided at higher spatial resolution than what is currently available. To provide the highest value for decision-making, the services will be co-developed with professional users from each sector.

For the wine sector, the project objective is to use the most recent state-of-the-art climate models outputs to produce user-oriented predictions of essential climate variables, bioclimatic indicators  and ad-hoc implemented compound risk indices. All of these indices  are relevant for viticulture at large scales, and more specifically for the MED-GOLD focus region of the Douro valley (Portugal). The indices  will be readily available for users in the grape and wine sector under several different formats and visualizations, allowing for easy, quick and seamless integration into critical decision-making.

Timely warnings of when climate change might impose a disruptive pressure upon wine production systems offers stakeholders a chance to act proactively both at seasonal (operational campaign planning) and decadal (strategic business planning) time-scales, making the wine sector more resilient to the impacts of climate change.