Historic terraced vineyards: impressive witnesses of vernacular architecture

Soil erosion in sloping vineyards assessed by using botanical indicators and sediment collectors in the Ruwer-Mosel valley

“…Most of the wine growers, local and regional governments, and viticulture companies have contributed to improve the production of wine, dissemination of tourism, promotion of vineyard landscapes. However, achieving sustainable vineyard soil management to promote environmental protection has received much less interest (Petit et al, 2012;Smith and Bentzen, 2011;Zsófi et al, 2011). The use of environmentally friendly management strategies is mainly encouraged by governmental subsidies or by demonstrated increases in productivity (Galati et al, 2015;Marqués et al, 2015).…”

Effects of farming terraces on hydrological and geomorphological processes. A review

“…The beginning of terraced viticulture in central Europe is assumed to date back to the period from the 10th to the 13th century (Petit et al, 2012). Terraces covered the hillsides on the Dalmatian islands of Hrvar and Krk around the 16th and 17th centuries (Nicod, 1990), and were built on the island of Lesbos from the end of the 14th century to the 19th century (Argyris, 2001).…”

Changes of landscape structure and cultural values of vineyard landscape

“…Rural and especially vineyard landscape creates a specifi c landscape image with high aesthetic values (Antrop and Van Eetvelde, 2000;Štefunková and Cebecauer, 2006), where valuable elements of rural architecture are also represented (Štěpánková and Feriancová, 2011;. Petit, Konold and Höchtl (2012) worked-out particular methodical approaches for assessment of cultural and historical values of the vineyard landscape in Germany according to occurrence of features such as parallel cultivation, fruit trees, retaining walls and stairs, ownership structure, hoeing of the soils. Similar indicators were used in historical vineyard assessment in Slovakia, in the Small Carpathian region (Špulerová et al, 2011; Štefunková et al, 2011), in the Nitrianske Hrnčiarovce cadastre (Supuka, Verešová and Šinka, 2011), but supplemented by other marks such as anthropogenic relief, age of vineyards, viticulture traditional technology, regional cellar architecture, etc.…”