Grapevines, containing large amounts of bioactive metabolites that offer health benefits, are widely cultivated around the world. The cold damage of growing outside with extreme low temperature during overwintering stage limits the expansion of production. Although the levels of morphological, biochemical and molecular in different Vitis species exposure to different temperatures have been investigated, differential expression of proteins in roots is still limited. Here, the roots of cold-resistant (Vitis. riparia × V. labrusca, T1) and cold-sensitive varieties (Cabernet Sauvignon, T3) at −4°C as well as of the former at −15°C (T2) were measured by iTRAQ-based proteomic analysis, expression levels of genes encoding candidate proteins were validated by qRT-PCR. The results showed that the root activity of cold-resistant variety was stronger than that of cold-sensitive variety, and it declined with the decrease of temperature. A total of 25 proteins were differentially co-expressed at T2 versus (vs) T1 and T1 vs T3, and these proteins were involved in stress response (e.g. DHN1, SHSPCP and USPCP), bio-signaling (e.g. PKCP, S/TPP and nsS/TP), metabolism (e.g. GluP, GluBE and PE), energy (e.g. AAC, AAACP and NADCP), and translation (e.g. rpL14, rpS21 and PPI). The relative expression levels of the candidate 13 genes were consistent with their fold-change values of proteins. The signature translation pattern for the roots at spatio-temporal treatments of varieties and temperatures provides insight into the differential mechanism of cold resistance of grapevines.