Climate drivers of red wine quality in four contrasting Australian wine regions

• Environment, and its inevitable season-to-season weather variations, is considered the main source of fluctuation in vintage quality within a region. In a 1992 study, the ideal vineyard climate was described as one with “consistently warm days –not hotand consistently cool nights throughout the growing season, but particularly around veraison, when maximum carbohydrate accumulation for color formation can be achieved”. But how many of us have a vineyard in an “ideal” environment? Chances are our vineyards are in what we classify as a “cool” or a “warm” environment. Then, it is no surprise that, in a cool environment, the worse vintages happen in the coolest years –due to incomplete ripening-; whereas in a hot environment, the trend is reversed and the best vintages tend to take place in the cool years.