Climate signatures of grape harvest dates

Abstract

Grape harvest dates have been recorded in many European locations for several centuries, and potentially contain important information about past climate. In this study, we systematically analyse the relationship of grape harvest dates recorded in the Burgundy region (France) with different climate data sets in order to understand the connection between climatic conditions and the time of harvest. The results point to a primary dependence of the grape harvest on the temperature from April to August. The strength of this connection depends on the winter to summer temperature relationship and increases over the last 100 years. The grape harvest date is also related to the winter temperature. This connection is non-stationary on interannual, but stable on decadal-to-multidecadal time scales. Therefore, the grape harvest date can be used for independent reconstructions of local April-to-August temperature on interannual time scales as well as remote winter temperature on decadal-to-multidecadal time scales