INFLUENCE OF ELEVATION AND SLOPE EXPOSURE UPON PRODUCTIVITY AND MUST QUALITY OF ‘TOURIGA NACIONAL’ (SUBREGION OF DOURO SUPERIOR)

The orography of the Demarcated Region of Douro is very characteristic and renders a wide variety of situations that combine elevation, slope exposure and slope inclination.
This work presents the results of a 3 years (1998-2000) study on the influence of elevation and slope exposure upon the productivity and quality of the Touriga Nacional variety standing on 17 plots dispersed along the sub-region of Douro Superior.
The analysis of variance and the Duncan’s test of the data at hand revealed a decrease on most parameters related to productivity and quality as the elevation increases and, simultaneously, the concentration of phenolic compounds increase proportionally to that very same variable.
In relation to the plots set either on northern or southern exposures, the SW and NW exposures surpass the N, S, NE, and SE exposures on richness of phenol compounds, but all other parameters, either productivity or quality related, presented lower values.

I International Symposium on Grapevine Growing, Commerce and Research

A.A. Oliveira, N. Magalhães

“Touriga Nacional”, Douro, Slope orientation, Elevation, Yield, Quality

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2004.652.31