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Grape ripening as a past climate indicator
A fifteenth-century depiction of the grape harvest from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, a medieval book of hours Grape ripening as a past climate indicator
Nature, Vol. 432, 18 November 2004.

Isabelle Chuine1, Pascal Yiou2, Nicolas Viovy2, Bernard Seguin3,
Valérie Daux2, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie4

1 CEFE-CNRS, 1919 route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier, France
2 LSCE-CEA-CNRS CE Saclay l'Orme des Merisiers, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
3 INRA Site Agroparc, domaine Saint-Paul, 84914 Avignon Cedex 9, France
4 Collège de France, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France
ABSTRACT:
French records of grape-harvest dates in Burgundy were used to reconstruct spring-summer temperatures from 1370 to 2003 using a process-based phenology model developed for the Pinot Noir grape. Our results reveal that temperatures as high as those reached in the 1990s have occurred several times in Burgundy since 1370. However, the summer of 2003 appears to have been extraordinary, with temperatures that were probably higher than in any other year since 1370.

Download data from the WDC Paleo archive:
Grape Harvest Dates and Temperature Reconstruction


To read or view the full study, please visit the Nature website.
It was published in Nature,Vol. 432, 18 November 2004.
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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
14 January 2005