“Climate is a massive determinant of wine style and quality, and it’s shifting in ways that are already measurable in New Zealand vineyards,” says Pete Taylor, who launched the Auxein Insights platform in January. “Growers are making strategic decisions like variety selection, site development, irrigation investment, things that will play out over decades.”
Pete, who has a Master of Wine & Viticulture from Lincoln University and a Master of Water Resource Management from Canterbury University, developed Auxein in 2024, having written his master’s thesis at Lincoln on high-resolution, vineyard-specific climate modelling and its impacts on Pinot Noir quality in New Zealand.
The latest iteration gives growers free access to regional and subregional climate views across New Zealand’s key wine regions, along with historical climate data going back to 1986. “Crucially, it also includes future climate scenario modelling out to 2100 in three time horizons,” Pete says, “Growers can explore how temperature, rainfall, and growing season length might shift under different emissions pathways.”
Understanding climate change trends can help growers plan better, he adds. “If a grower can see that average March temperatures in their subregion have increased by 0.8C over the past 20 years, and that trend is projected to continue, they can start thinking earlier about picking windows, heat stress management, and even whether their current varieties will retain the balance and flavour profile the market expects.”
He’s also inviting growers to connect their onsite weather stations to Auxein Insights, to give them “richer local data in their own dashboard” but also to build a more accurate picture of subregional climate variation.
Later this year he will roll out a subscription-based app called Auxein Grow, “an end-to-end vineyard management platform with block-level insights”, but says the Insight platform will continue to offer easy-to-interpret climatic modelling for future planning. “Regional and subregional data gives growers the context to understand whether what they’re experiencing locally is a short-term anomaly or part of a longer trend, and help to plan accordingly.”
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