Drought: A thirst for answers in Spain
How are Spanish producers preparing for a future with less water? And how might their actions reshape the identity of some of the country’s flagship regions and vineyards?
Arguments over why – or whether – global warming is happening abound; there are more than a few scenarios out there, and increasingly popular are theories in which human activity isn’t responsible for any of it: wonderfully convenient.
But it’s hard (impossible?) to argue with the fact that the climate has changed and is likely to continue to do so.
Those of us working in the wine industry have long been the canary in this coal mine, squawking and getting increasingly worried as average temperatures – measured on a daily basis by weather stations in every major wine region and tracked at a macro level over decades – continue to climb across the world.
With this has come the rise of previously overlooked cooler-climate wine regions and a re-evaluation of long-established grape varieties in classic, established regions. It has also led to higher alcohol levels resulting from riper fruit – and, without question, drastic changes in weather patterns and extreme weather events.
‘In reality we’re producing maybe 30%-40% of what we made in 2021 – it’s not sustainable’
Dominik Huber, Terroir al Límit
Much of this can be managed, but long-term weather patterns are, unfortunately, beyond our control. The most dangerous of these in the context of wine is undoubtedly drought.
Grapevines are naturally hardy plants and they survive in the most unlikely of scenarios: hanging from the cliffs of Switzerland, and withstanding the harsh winters of Canada and extreme summers of Morocco.
What they can’t survive is an extended period with insufficient water. Parts of Spain, notably Catalonia and Andalucia, endured an extended period of limited rainfall from 2021 through much of 2024, when the heavens finally opened and replenished the reservoirs and parched vineyards.
But the damage – through stress caused to vines and the condition of soils – and impact on the wines has been eye-opening and has changed the way many producers regard the future of their business.
Inevitability & mitigation
‘I have always said I will never irrigate my vineyards,’ says Terroir al Límit’s Dominik Huber (pictured) with a tone of sadness. ‘But after another year like this?… I might end up changing my mind.’
This is a big statement from a very ‘hands-off’ Priorat producer. ‘Each year it’s 30%-50% down from the previous harvest. In reality we’re producing maybe 30%-40% of what we made in 2021. It’s not sustainable.’
This is sadly a common refrain among producers around Catalonia, and the responses range from fear and anger to a resigned shrug of the shoulders. ‘What can you do about mother nature?’ questions Enric Soler, who has vineyards a little north of Villafranca del Penedès. ‘We have to manage with what we have.
Extreme weather events
The dangerously low Pantà de Sau reservoir, west of Girona in Catalonia, during continuing severe drought in early 2024. Photo
This issue might be particularly prominent in Catalonia, but escalating heat and limited rainfall are pressing problems right across the Iberian peninsula. Producers in the Sierra de Gredos, a mountain range west of Madrid famous for its ethereal Garnacha wines, have seen average harvest dates advance three or four weeks into early August in some years.
Challenges arise not only from heatwaves and lack of water, but also the unseasonal storms that come with these changing weather patterns. In recent years, hailstorms at harvest time have become an increasing problem – several producers I am aware of experienced total crop losses this year, with others losing more than 40% days before a harvest was due to begin.
Even in the country’s north, where vineyards are more exposed to the influence of the cooler Atlantic ocean, regions such as Rioja have been affected. Record temperatures in the summer of 2023, in particular during the heatwave of early to midAugust, were followed by devastating September rains.
The dry, distressed land was unable to bounce between the two extremes, and producers talked openly about the struggles they faced to simultaneously manage the stress of excessive heat and the immediate blooming of mildew from excessive rain.
‘Our new vineyards are being designed to respect the biodiversity of the area, but with far greater retention of water’
Joan Ignasi Domènech, Vinyes Domènech
Preparing for scarcity
Joan Ignasi Domènech
Despite the fatalism of some producers, many are making plans for a future that involves significantly less water. ‘Priorat is used to having low levels of rainfall, and our llicorella soil [layered slate with a friable structure that retains pockets of humidity, also encouraging vines to develop deep roots to find the water they need] is key to retaining it,’ explains Oriol Pajes, export manager at Alvaro Palacios in Gratallops.
‘But when we’re getting less than half the average rainfall over the course of a season… there are limits.’
One approach increasingly being taken by growers, when replacing older vines, is to graft indigenous, more drought-resistant varieties onto the rootstocks of established vines, particularly if the likes of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot are being replaced.
It’s normal that such change occurs in vineyards over the years: new land is acquired, replanted, left fallow or reshaped entirely.
Yet over the last 18 months in Spain, I’ve noticed that newer vineyards are being designed in an altogether different way. ‘Keyline modelling’ is now on the lips of Spanish producers from Valencia to Rioja.
It’s a system designed by Australian mine engineer and inventor PA Yeomans that aims to maximise water retention in the soil by identifying naturally occurring keylines – the land contours that determine the natural flow of water over a space – and shaping the vineyard to follow these lines.
The result is a landscape with a gently flowing appearance, which can almost form spirals in some instances, along with water-catching channels known as swales and including ‘rip lines’ – furrows dug, or ‘ripped’, in parallel to the keylines – that break the natural topography, helping to spread water throughout the vineyard and minimise waste.
A visit to Vinyes Domènech at Capçanes in DO Montsant, Catalonia, in late 2024 allowed me to see this in action. ‘We realised just how much water was being lost due to it flowing out of the vineyard, particularly as we plant so much on the slopes,’ says founder and owner Joan Ignasi Domènech (pictured, above).
‘Our new vineyards are being designed to respect the biodiversity of the area, but with far greater water retention.’ The estate itself, situated in a beautiful corner of Montsant surrounded by thick forest, with a steep bluff behind it, is in the fortunate position of being able to maximise rainfall flowing down from the higher slopes, yet Domènech’s plans assume that they will see much less of it in the future.
Relative respite
Sarah Perez
In 2024, the drought finally broke, with rains falling in the autumn and replenishing the soils across Spain. I have two treasured pictures of Enric Soler standing in his Nun Vinya dels Taus vineyard in Sabanell, Penedès, one taken in 2023 and an identical picture taken a year later to the week, a few days after the first rains had fallen.
The difference couldn’t be more drastic. In 2023, the picture was bleak: barren chalky soils with no cover crops and a tired, weary look to the land – Mad Max, Penedès style. In 2024, shoots were springing up almost to meet the rain, grass was sprouting from the ground and the vineyard as a whole looked completely revitalised.
Soler seemed happier, even though these rains had fallen after the harvest.
‘It might be the end of this insane weather,’ remarked a hopeful Sara Pérez (pictured), head winemaker at Priorat producer Mas Martinet. ‘With the end [since June 2024] of the El Niño cycle, we’re hoping for more balanced conditions in the coming years across the world.’
Indeed, there is even a good chance of a La Niña cycle beginning between the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026, according to the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
This would bring cooler average temperatures to the world and higher chances of rainfall over the subsequent three to five years. While such a reprieve would be most welcome across the winemaking world, preparations in Spain for a longer-term future of drought conditions continue.
Lessons have been learnt from the brutal drought of the early 2020s; whether it will be enough to manage the next event when it inevitably arrives remains to be seen.
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