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climate change

Grape-growing is a very good indicator of climate change. Greg Jones from Southern Oregon University has studied climate changes in 27 wine regions around the world since 1990. During that time the average growing season temperature has risen by 1.3 degrees Centigrade (1.7 degrees C in Europe). Budburst is occurring on average six days earlier, flowering 11 days earlier, veraison 15 days earlier and harvest 17 days earlier.

The world's major viticulture regions fall into bands of areas, with average temperatures between 10 and 20 deg.C - giving a good spatial proxy for the limits of grape and wine production. The dots on the map represent the wine regions studied in a global analysis by Gregory James and colleagues on the impacts of climate change on wine quality.

Jones has predicted that the world's viticultural areas will begin to shift poleward, by as much as 500km by 2099. This would mean most of Australia's wine industry would be eradicated! However in terms of English wine the effect to date has been beneficial with warmer summers giving riper grapes and better wine quality. And we are starting to see richer red wines coming from northerly areas such as England and the Loire. So it's not all bad news - in fact the Champagne industry sees global warming as an opportunity rather than a threat.

Will we see Scottish Shiraz or Swedish Sauvignon one day? Growers will certainly need to adapt to conditions, planting drought-resistant rootstocks and different grape varieties.

The Telegraph, 24 March 2006

Alcohol levels

In Champagne, the richer alcohol levels mean that they are using less 'dosage' (addition of sugar at bottling). On the flip side though, warm climate wines are becoming too alcoholic reaching 15% abv or more. Not only do these wines have a different balance but they could soon fall into a higher duty rate band and become more expensive in the UK. For the first time some wineries are starting to de-alcoholise wines using advanced technology such as reverse osmosis and spinning cones (which is not always allowed by our regulations).

There are two arguments here. One 'for' in that perfectly good wine used to be made at lower alchol levels (11-13%), so taking alcohol out is acting responsibly by lowering the units of alcohol a glass would contain. The argument 'against' is that taking alcohol out unbalances the wine which is produced from the natural balance of sugars, acids, tannins etc from the grapes.

We would like to see more research on lowering alcohol levels by 'prevention rather than cure' methods, for example by using canopy management techniques to provide more shading or picking earlier provided tannins are adequately ripe. You never know, we may see more such wines needing to be cellared in order to soften the acidity and tannin - just like the old days!

Sea level rise

The rate at which the polar ice caps are melting has stunned scientists. The Arctic has lost about a third of its ice since satellite measurements began 30 years ago and an area twice the size of Britain was lost in just one week in August 2007.

Sea level rises could be much higher this century than predicted - some say as much as 4 metres. Large rises could see the eradication of some of the world's finest vineyards such as Bordeaux which some have said would disappear under water.

Grey water recycling

In Australia, progress is being made in recycling grey water to irrigate the vineyards. For example a community grant was given for a project to improve water efficiency at various vineyards in the McLaren Vale region by implementing a range of water-saving initiatives. These include installation of automated and predictive irrigation and soil moisture monitoring systems. The changes are estimated at 50,000 litres of water each year.

Useful Links:

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Further reading on Climate Change:

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wines of the month

2005 Limney Estate Sparkling, Sussex, England - organic wine 2005/2006 An excellent English sparkling wine, showing just how close we can get to Champagne! £16.95 Certified Organic grapes

2007 Yalumba Organic Viognier, South Australia - organic wine white Wonderfully aromatic white from Australia's oldest family-owned vineyard £8.15 Certified Organic grapes