cover a period of 33 years (1970 to 2002). In this work all
analysis was performed using the average of the six quality
rankings (Barolo and Barbaresco have the same level)
(Table 1). The average was used because of the existence
of similar quality responses to weather conditions for all
wines. Consequently, the annual quality ranking variability
among different wines, observed in some years of the
studied series, may be due to meteorological events in the
local area