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 Regional Overview
Visiting Australia? Discover our main wine states and regions
Australian wine regions
Australia is a large country - Margaret River is further from the Hunter Valley than Jerez in Spain is from Tokaji in Hungary - so, despite the distinctive national approach to wine, Australian wines are not all the same. The wines of Margaret River and of the Hunter Valley differ as much as sherry and tokay do. The three most important wine-producing states are South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. As well as bulk production, they each have specific premium wine regions.
Read more about the wine regions of Australia here.
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OXFORD COMPANION TO WINE |
Home : Oxford Companion : Search Results |
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The absence of sunlight in a vine canopy. This is due to leaves blocking out sunlight, as the transmission of light through one leaf is less than 10 per cent of full sunlight. In most vineyards the blocking leaves are other vine leaves, but occasionally they may be the leaves of weeds or even adjacent trees, as occurs in the Vinho Verde region of Portugal. For most vineyards in the world, shade is due to vigorous vines being trained to restrictive vine-training systems.
Sunlight levels in the centre of dense canopies with many leaf layers can be as little as one per cent of the levels above the canopy. At this very low level of light photosynthesis is almost zero, and in time the leaves turn yellow and then fall off. Leaves deep in the canopy also experience filtered sunlight with altered colour composition, in that red light is reduced and far red light relatively enriched. The ratio of red to far red light can act as a signal system for the vine and other plants, and may play a role in the vine's response to shade. Since the vine evolved in forests, it has mechanisms like tendrils for avoiding shade by climbing towards the sunlight. Shade can reduce both vine yield and grape quality. Shade has been shown to reduce bud initiation, budbreak, fruit set, and hence berry number, as well as berry size. So shade can reduce yield dramatically, and yields may increase up to threefold where shade has been removed by improving the training system and allowing the sunlight in. Many studies around the world, for a range of vine varieties in a range of climates, have also demonstrated that shade alters grape chemical composition and reduces wine quality. Shade is known to decrease levels of sugars, anthocyanins, phenolics, tartaric acid, monoterpene flavour compounds, and apparent varietal character. Other negative effects of shade on wine quality are increases in malic acid, pH, potassium, and in the so-called herbaceous characters. Shaded fruit is also more susceptible to botrytis bunch rot and powdery mildew. Canopy management can reduce shade in the canopy and, in high-vigour vineyards, may improve yield and quality simultaneously. Bibliography - Champagnol, F., Elements de physiologie de la vigne et de viticulture generale (St-Gely-du-Fesc, 1984).
- Smart, R. E., and Robinson, M., Sunlight into Wine: A Handbook for Winegrape Canopy Management (Adelaide, 1991).
References anthocyanins berry size botrytis bunch rot budbreak canopy flavour compounds fruit set herbaceous initiation malic acid pH phenolics photosynthesis potassium powdery mildew sugars tartaric acid training systems Vinho Verde yield
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© Jancis Robinson & Oxford University Press 1999 All rights reserved
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