Historical and recent viticulture as a source of climatological knowledge in the Czech Republic =Vinařství v minulosti a v současnosti jako zdroj klimatologických poznatků v České republice

Abstract

The cultivation of vine (Vinis vinifera) that yields grapes for wine manufacture is strongly influenced by eather. This relationship enables the use of historical viticultural data for the reconstruction of temperatures and weather extremes in past times. This paper summarises the basics of the relationship between viticulture and climate in the Czech Lands. We compile historical vations before AD 1500 and for the 16th-18th centuries from various types of documentary evidence. The starting dates of the grape harvest in Znojmo for 1800-1890 are : for the reconstruction of April-August temperatures in Brno. The quality of the wine : Bzenec (1800-1890), Znojmo (1802-1845) and Bohutice (1861-1912) is analysed with respect to temperatures corresponding to excellent, good, average and bad wine. Times of flowering and grape harvest are compared with temperatures at the Velké Pavlovice station for the period 1956-2007 and 1984-2007, for various grape varieties.