Loading the Vintage Watch
Gathering climate for the world’s wine regions …
8%
Loading the Vintage Watch
Gathering climate for the world’s wine regions …
8%
A season read as it unfolds — the science of climate, grape and terroir behind the Vintage Outlook. Everything laid bare but the recipe.
The idea
Most vintage talk is hindsight — a verdict handed down once the wine is in bottle. The Vintage Outlook does the opposite: it reads a growing season as it unfolds and estimates how promising the year looks, for a given grape, in a given region.
Every place is measured the same way — a quiet appellation by the same yardstick as a famous one — so the comparison is honest. It is a forward-looking signal, not a critic's score.
What it is
A weather-and-terroir reading of the season, for a grape and a place.
What it isn't
A tasting note, a critic's rating or a promise — wine is made by people, not by weather alone.
The method
Five passes — from the sky, to the soil, to the cellar door.
Global reanalysis climate back to 1940, joined to the live forecast — temperature, rainfall, sunshine and evaporation, day by day.
Soil texture and water-holding capacity, the bedrock below, the slope and which way it faces — all from freely-licensed earth-science data.
Several points sampled across the appellation, not a single map pixel — so a south-facing hillside isn't averaged away with the valley floor.
Established bioclimatic indices, weighed against what each variety needs to ripen. The question is never just 'is it warm?' but 'is it warm enough for this grape, here?'
Regional reports of frost, hail and harvest, and the documented great vintages of the past — so the reading is anchored to what actually happened.
Tested against history
Every region carries a library of its documented great vintages. The model's reading of each past season is checked against what really happened: does weather that looks like a five-star year actually predict one?
A learned correction layer refines the method for each climate type, keeping only the improvements that hold up across regions — never just the one it was tuned on. And confidence grows as the season matures: an early projection is honestly noisier than one read at harvest.
Grape by grape
There is no single scale for ripeness — the same summer that perfects a Syrah barely stirs a Pinot Noir. So the model carries a ripening profile for every grape it models on its own terms, more than 40 of them: the warmth each needs, how it copes with heat, the sweet spot where it makes its finest wine. For each region it asks not “was it a warm year?” but “was this the right year for this grape, here?” The 1944 Amerine–Winkler heat map is the textbook backdrop it grew from; alongside is what it became — live, down to the parcel, across every signal that shapes a vintage, and sharper with every season.
See all 40+ grapesResolution
a step finer than the old map
Signals
Learns as it goes
Sharper every season — and calibrated against the documented great vintages.
Old way vs. our model
Amerine–Winkler heat regions, 1944 — the reference scale we build on
Same starting science — a different century of resolution.
Beyond warmth
Light during ripening builds colour, tannin and aroma — often a stronger signal than heat alone in cooler regions.
Warm days and cool nights lock in acidity and perfume; a wide swing gives wines tension and lift.
The classic vintage-maker or -breaker: rain at harvest invites rot in cool regions, yet brings welcome relief in hot, dry ones.
Mildew and rot in damp summers, spring frost at budbreak, hail in a single afternoon — the season's hazards all carry a cost.
A gentle, well-timed water deficit concentrates great red wine; drought or waterlogging does not. Winter rain banks a reserve for the dry months.
Where the wine actually grows
A region is not one dot on a map. The model nests each region into its sub-appellations and individual vineyard parcels, reads the soil and slope beneath, and samples several real points. Soil and slope refine the score — they don't dominate it.
Soils the model understands
Region → appellation → parcel: measured at several points on the real slopes — not a single map pixel.
A look inside
The model above is the engine. Here is how the Vintage Outlook looks for our clients and partners — from the world overview down to a single region's dossier.
A region in focus
Each region opens to the season's forces, ripeness for the grape, the closest analog vintage and the appellation map — the headline read, before you go deeper.
Go deeper and every region becomes a full report: the likely harvest window, the score's path through the season, the altitude profile and its measurement points, the rainfall history, soil & bedrock, the analog great vintages, a market outlook and Margaux's read. Refreshed every week as the season moves — and exportable as a PDF to share or keep.
That PDF is the compact report — open it now. The full, extensive dossier is available on request, and to our clients.
BetaScreenshots are from a beta and may not reflect the latest version — shown for indication only.
Built on open data
Every source the model draws on is licensed for commercial use — CC-BY, CC0, ODbL or public domain — and credited here. No closed feeds, no non-commercial-only data: the lineage is open to inspection, and the model stands on it commercially.
How it compares
The famous charts tell you about finished vintages. The Vintage Watch reads the one that's happening — live, grape by grape, parcel by parcel.
| WatchVintage Watch | ChartsVintage charts | CrowdCrowd ratings | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reads the season live (in‑season) | |||
| Down to appellation & parcel | |||
| Grape‑aware ripening model | |||
| Updated every week | |||
| Climate signals, not just taste | |||
| Transparent, science‑based method | |||
| Worldwide — 731 regions | |||
| Exportable PDF dossier |
The classic charts remain the authority on finished vintages — and we calibrate against them. The Vintage Watch does what they can't: read the year while it is still alive.
What it is, and isn't
This is a weather-and-terroir signal, reported at region and appellation scale. It complements — it never replaces — a grower's intimate knowledge of their own parcels, clones and rootstock. Read it as a well-informed expectation, to be confirmed in the glass.
On the roadmap: finer vineyard parcels and satellite vine-vigour (NDVI) via Google Earth Engine.
Explore the Vintage WatchModel & analytics by QLA Labs, licensed to LCV Suisse under a limited licence for testing — this is the current beta.
Built on scientific research and years of oenological experience.
Proudly made in Switzerland.