Agroclimatic zoning for winemaking grape production in the State of Parana

Paraná is the fourth largest grape producing state in Brazil and the cultivation of Vitis vinifera L. cultivars for winemaking is expanding is several regions of the state. The objective of this work was to characterize the potential of wine grape production based on the Géoviticulture Multicriteria Climatic Classification System for Paraná. A 30-year database constituted of 21 IAPAR (Agronomic Institute of Paraná) meteorological stations and 455 rainfall stations from Instituto das Águas do Paraná (Paraná State Water Institute) generated the following climatic indexes: dryness index (DI), heliothermal index (HI) and cool night index (CI) for the periods of October to March and April to September. According to the results, the viticultural climate of some regions in the state of Paraná belongs to the climatic groups where are found several traditional wine-producing regions in the world, showing potential for the expansion of winemaking in the state. Viticultural climate, associated with latitude in Paraná and with thermal conditions for vine growing cycle all over the year, make production displacement possible in the West, North and Northeastern regions and the production of the best quality grapes for winemaking in the fall and winter period, due to the most favorable cold night index and the lowest rainfall volume. In the coldest regions of the state (Center, South and East), it is only possible to have one production cycle, since the risk of frosts prevents the exploration of grapes in different periods.