This special symposium focuses on the analysis of climate change impacts on the spatial dimension of vineyard land use. This includes the analysis of projections of current vineyard areas that are lost due to climate change, those that are retained despite climate change, and new vineyard areas that are created due to climate change. The analysis explores the use of GIS over regional and global scales. Furthermore, this symposium sheds light on the socioeconomic dimension of climate change impacts on the wine industry and viticulture by exploring the use of an ecosystem service approach. Such an economic sector is responsible for the provision of a wide range of cobenefits in addition to wine products. These include biodiversity protection and cultural services, including landscape values and ecotourism benefits (see Nunes and Loureiro, Reference Nunes and Loureiroforthcoming). In this context, this symposium endorses the ecosystem service approach to the management of vineyards as a regional strategic plan to promote sustainable development. This embraces a broad range of issues including (1) the improvement of people's quality of life; (2) the increase of prospects for more jobs in rural areas; and (3) the protection of regional commons, including both biodiversity and cultural heritage–oriented commons.

This symposium is composed of three articles. The first, by Patrick Roehrdanz and Lee Hannah (Reference Roehrdanz and Hannah2016), focuses on the impact of climate change on California wine and wildlife habitat. According to the authors, climate change–induced impacts in agriculture in California, notably in the wine farming sector, may have negative impacts on conservation. Similar results were also presented by Palatnik and Nunes (Reference Palatnik and Nunes2015), who computed climate change–induced biodiversity impacts on the agricultural sector across the countries of the Mediterranean basin. Here, however, the authors examine impacts of climate change on wine grape suitability in California and its induced impacts for nature conservation and water use. Under two global climate models and two emissions scenarios, wine grape suitability in California is projected to decline overall and to move into undeveloped areas that provide important habitats for native species. Coastal and upslope areas retain and improve in suitability, respectively, whereas inland areas see the largest losses in suitability. Areas of declining suitability are regions in which heightened water use for vineyard adaptation may lead to declines in stream flow or conflicts with other water uses. Growing global demand and shortfalls in supply make it likely that vineyards will expand into newly suitable areas. Concerted land-use planning involving both industry and conservationists is needed to avoid negative impacts on unique California native species in these areas. The authors conclude that existing California vineyards in areas of declining suitability will need to adapt, and advance planning and use of non-water-intensive adaptation options such as trellising and new varietals will help reduce water conservation issues in these areas.

The second article, by Roberto Ferrise et al. (Reference Ferrise, Trombi, Moriondo and Bindi2016), is focused on the direct climate change impacts on grapevine cultivation in the Mediterranean basin, another worldwide important enological region. The proposed analyses are accomplished by using three regional climatic models (RCMs), which were designed specifically for high-resolution simulations of climate over the Mediterranean region. RCM outputs were used to feed a grapevine growth simulation model, which was developed, tested, and calibrated for the Sangiovese variety. In addition, the study area was identified by implementing a bioclimatic classification of the regions based on the Winkler index. Areas in which the Winkler index ranged from 1,700 to 1,900 thermal units were selected. The results indicated that climate over the entire Mediterranean basin is generally projected to be warmer and drier, particularly during spring and summer. Warmer temperatures coupled with increased water stress, due to lower precipitation, affect, with different impacts, both the growth and the grapevine production. In particular, estimation results indicated a general advancement and shortening of the phenological stages with respect to the present period. Accordingly, the reduction in time for biomass accumulation negatively affected the final yield. The authors conclude by stating that these effects can be expected for most of the area that is currently suitable for the production of wines, according to the range 1,700–1,900 stipulated by the Winkler index. Only in a few regions will the new environmental conditions not be detrimental, thereby allowing the crop to benefit from enhanced CO₂ and, in so doing, resulting in either the maintenance or increase in yield with respect to the present time. Finally, the authors suggest that further studies are required to explore the efficiency of some adaptation options to cope with prospective climate change over the Mediterranean basin.

The third article, by Ashenfelter and Storchmann (Reference Ashenfelter and Storchmann2016), presents an overview of the extensive literature on the impact of weather and climate on grapes and wine production. The discussion starts by first addressing the physical impact of weather on vine phenology, berry composition, and yields. In a second stage, the article surveys the economic literature measuring the effects of temperature on wine quality, prices, costs, and profits and how climate change will affect these. Finally, the authors describe what has been learned so far about possible adaptation strategies for grape growers that would allow them to mitigate the economic effects of climate change. According to the review, climate change is likely to produce winners and losers, with the winners being those closer to the north and south poles. Furthermore, there are also likely to be some substantial short-run costs as growers adapt to climate change.

To our knowledge, this special issue constitutes the first systematic collection of socioeconomic studies of vineyards and vineyard management related to ecosystem services in the context of global climate change.