How winemakers are coping with climate change, and does it mean an end to our classic wine styles?
onsider this: Bordeaux
may already have had its best
vintages for Cabernet.’ This
blunt analysis, from Australia’s
flying ‘vine doctor’ Richard Smart,
probably gave more pause for thought
than any of the swirling maps, emotive
speeches or lists of data presented at the
second Climate Change and Wine
Conference, held earlier this year in
Barcelona. Warming to his theme,
Smart added: ‘Maybe we’ll think
of future vintages as “postclassic”,
and therefore
worth less.’ If anything
more was needed to fuelthe spiralling prices of 2005 Bordeaux,
there it was. But the larger question is
this: if climate change really does mean
Bordeaux’s days as a fine wine region are
numbered, does the same fate await the
rest of Europe’s great vineyards?
‘If climate change really does mean Bordeaux’s days
as a fine wine region are numbered, does the same
fate await the rest of Europe’s great vineyards?’
The Europeans show more optimism
about the future than winemakers Down
Under. When Bordeaux-based international
consultant Michel Rolland spoke at the
Barcelona event, his tone was more
relaxed than Smart’s: ‘Climate change is
not changing our lives day to day,’ he said,
‘We’re making wines in the same way. We
have more sugar because we want more
sugar; we have more silky tannins because
of what we are doing in the winery.’ It
sounds rather glib, but Rolland does have a
point. So far, climate change has favoured
production of the style of wines the world
loves, and for which Rolland is acclaimed.
Why would he – or we – be complaining?
Well, for a start, fashions are turning
away from the more full-bodied, riper
styles that are high in alcohol, and there
is a surge of rosé and flavour-light whites,
such as Pinot Grigio. Is it even going to
be possible in the future to produce crisp,
lightweight, yet high-quality wines in
the cool European climates of today?
According to Hans Schultz of the
Geisenheim Research Centre in
Germany, higher temperatures have
already changed some styles of wine. ‘The
wines from classic, cool-climate grape
regions used to be thin and low in
alcohol,’ he says, ‘but now, ripening is
much more consistent.’
A growing problem
Perhaps we have been slow to pick up on
the relatively gradual effects of climate
change because improvements in vineyard
management and winemaking knowledge
have taken place alongside better vintages.
All of these factors cater for today’s
demand for ripe wines that are
approachable earlier. Schultz’s view is
backed by numbers from France, showing,
for example, that the average alcohol level
in Alsace Riesling has risen by 2% in the
past 30 years (and let’s not forget, these are
wines that are also getting sweeter).
According to Smart, viticulture is the
‘canary in the coalmine’ for agriculture.
‘The effects [of climate change] will be
seen earlier, and be more dramatic,’ he
says. Harvest dates are getting earlier in
many regions of Europe, yet grapes are
riper when they are picked. The harvest
in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, for example, is
a month earlier than in 1945. Bernard
Seguin, of INRA, the French agricultural
research institute, reports that for every
1˚C increase in temperature in France, it
is necessary to go 200km north. If the
prediction that temperatures rise by 2ºC
in Europe within 50 years is accurate,
growing conditions are probably going
to change sooner than we think.
The ways in which warming will
affect grape growing are, in many respects,
well understood. Higher levels of carbon
dioxide will increase photosynthesis and
vegetative cycles will shorten. Raised
temperatures will lead to more
evaporation and transpiration, which
could, in turn, lead to vines with water
stress if rainfall levels drop. If winters are
mild, advanced vine growth in the spring
will lead to greater risk of frost or poor
fruit set in some regions, possibly creating
new risks. With the growing season being
earlier, the crucial ripening period of
véraison will fall in the warmer month of
July, instead of August. This will affect
the flavour and aromatic profile of fine
wines. At high temperatures, the aroma
potential of grapes falls away sharply.
Years of practice
Smart notes that the reputations of the
classic regions of Europe were created by
hundreds of years of a climate that was
more or less stable. The well-known
relationship between varieties and climate,
and the consequent strictly delineated
boundaries that mark the world’s historic
wine-growing regions were formed by
centuries of accumulated knowledge and
tradition. The Old World has always had a
headstart in wine: there has always been
the experience of previous generations to
draw on, so fewer mistakes to make. But
the current evidence suggests that the
pace of change for today’s generation in
Europe will be so fast that they will be
the ones to shape the future. Moreover,
they may well be looking to the
experiences of those in the warmer
climates of the New World to know what
the future holds for them in Europe.
‘Vineyards on steep slopes,
such as those of the Mosel
Valley and the Douro, will
suffer most’
The Geisenheim’s Hans Schultz and
Greg Jones of Southern Oregon
University studied climate trends in 27 of
the world’s major wine regions (see
maps, above and over). They found that
between 1950 and 2000, the average
increase in temperature during the vine’s
growing season was 1.3°C. Looking at
the European regions only, the increase
was significantly higher, at 1.7°C. And this is before the heatwave of 2003 and
steady rise in average temperatures since.
‘It’s not just the rise in temperature
that will be the challenge in Europe,’ says
Schultz. ‘For most regions, it’s the
variability that will be the problem.’ The
same study showed increased variability
in climate in 18 of the 27 regions. Schultz
and Jones predict these patterns are set to
continue. Mosel winegrower Ernst
Loosen is all to aware of the issues: ‘We
used to have vintages that were not as
ripe, but we knew what we were dealing
with. Now, it’s a new problem every
year. I want to keep making the same
style of wine, but we have different
problems now.’ He cites the heatwave of
2003 and the botrytis rot problems of
2006. ‘We must learn how to handle
these kinds of vintages,’ he says.
Changes in temperature will, says
Schultz, cause ‘massive fluctuations’ in
rainfall, a scenario that could threaten the
continued viability of some of Europe’s
best vine-growing areas. Shortages of water
are a relatively new problem in Europe,
and one that producers are ill-equipped
to deal with. Quite apart from the legal and
ideological constraints that have prevented
irrigation in the past, there is simply no
infrastructure at present in Europe for
this type of water management. ‘The
New World idea of planning a vineyard
around water availability is a concept
that is absent in traditional wine growing
regions,’ Schultz points out. Vineyards
on steep slopes, such as those of the
Mosel Valley and the Douro, will suffer
most, he predicts, both from the
impracticality of setting up irrigation
systems and from extremes of
precipitation. Heavy rainfall will increase
erosion and degrade the organic matter
in the soil. This is more problematic the
steeper the slope, and will affect how the
soil retains water and the quality of wine.
Adopt, adapt, improve
But it’s not all doom and gloom for the
vineyards. Those that can adapt to the
changing conditions will be best placed
to continue to make fine wine, even if it
is not necessarily the same wine, in the
same place they make it today. Schultz
comments that so far in Europe, we have
only really understood the lower limits of
temperature for viticulture, and have
never explored the upper limits. What is
needed is more understanding of how
existing vine varieties can adapt and still
make quality wine in the areas where
they are planted today. One hopes for
speedier (or more relaxed) legislation to
allow winemakers more flexibility.
For the most part, the French, at least,
seem bullish about their situation. On a
recent week-long trip to the Côte d’Or,
nobody was talking about anything more
sinister than the most recent Burgundy
vintage in the glass before them. And the
Bordelais are relentlessly optimistic.
Bruno Prats, winemaker and former
owner of Cos d’Estournel, says: ‘Yes, there
are problems, but we do have solutions.
Bordeaux has lots of options: there’s
Syrah and Carmenère, and Malbec could
replace Merlot.’ Smart has some words of
comfort, too: ‘It’s not all bad news. Warm
areas like Bordeaux can bring back old
varieties, and hot areas have 20 years to
breed something new.’ Even so, it looks
like his money is still on Tasmania.
Written by Beverly Blanning
