Burgundy without pinot noir grapes? Climate change pushes the boundaries of winemaking

What is the first industry to fall victim to climate change? There is a decent argument that it already happened – more than 600 years ago. In 1066, the Normans installed a feudal aristocracy in the British Isles, and the invaders brought with them a love of winemaking. Those skills flourished in the conditions of the Medieval Warm Period, a patch of unusually high temperatures from about 950 to 1250 that allowed vineyards to spread across the well-drained chalk soils of southern England. The mild conditions gave way to a frigid period known as the Little Ice Age, however, which held sway until the 19th century. As the climate cooled, English viticulture collapsed. That should be a worrying example if you are a winemaker. Grapevines are notoriously sensitive to the smallest changes in landscape and climate. Those with a skilled palate can supposedly sense the subtlest of environmental effects in a bottle of wine – whether the winter that preceded the vintage was warm or cold, the harvest wet or dry, the grapes grown on a slope facing to the north or the south. It does not take much imagination to see how a warming climate could play havoc with this. Own a semiconductor factory, and your climate exposures will occur on the macro scale. Will bigger rainstorms flood the site, and will hotter summers push up my bill for air conditioning? A vintner, on the other hand, has to think about micro issues. Will a few extra warm nights or blazing days in the growing season throw off the delicate balance of sugar and water formation? And will that make the resulting wines less fragrant or complex than they otherwise would be? For winemakers in Europe, a fresh climate headache is looming in the geographical indications they have used to defend their art. For the best part of a century, European agricultural producers have built a complex system of intellectual property around the idea that particular types of food and drink are regionally distinctive, and have names that must be protected under copyright law. There is even a line on geographical indications in the Treaty of Versailles, the document that formally ended World War I. Recognition of geographical indications is a basic hurdle for any nation wanting to strike a trade deal with the European Union and gain access to the world’s second-biggest market. It is why makers of sparkling wine in most of the world cannot call their product champagne, and why Australian and Canadian producers of fortified white wine these days label their bottles as Apera, because only those from the Jerez region of Spain can call their product sherry. Fully 1,646 of the 1,658 geographical indications for wine listed on the European Union’s eAmbrosia register are for EU countries. Of the rest, five are in the UK, four in China, two are in the US (the Napa Valley and Willamette Valley) and one in Brazil. Strong yield decreases were projected for northern Italy, central Spain, Greece, and Bulgaria From a recent study on 1,085 wine geographical indications in Europe Adding such geographical limits might have seemed like a good idea during the stable climate of the 20th century, but in the more disordered era into which we are now moving, it is a risk. Many geographical indications assign a specific grape variety for a specific region. Barolo, a revered Italian wine, can only be made with nebbiolo grapes in a handful of communities among the mountains of Piedmont. As a warming planet makes the climate of northern Italy more like regions further south where nebbiolo cannot flourish, the rigidity of Barolo’s geographic indication risks driving it into extinction. Researchers in Europe recently analysed 1,085 wine geographical indications across the continent to work out which were most at risk from a warming climate. What they found should worry viticulturalists: a swathe of country is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and has little natural capacity to adapt. “Strong yield decreases were projected for northern Italy, central Spain, Greece, and Bulgaria,” they wrote, “and decreased suitability for Spain, parts of France, central and northern Italy, and large parts of eastern Europe.” In Burgundy, regions known for the pinot noir grape may become unable to grow the variety. The geographical indication system needs to be rethought to allow winegrowers to switch their practices as the climate warms, they argued. That should not be impossible. Champagne, grown at the northern limit of wine cultivation and traditionally seen as the product of a difficult environment, is conventionally made from just three grape varieties: pinot noir, chardonnay, and meunier. But there are four other less celebrated varieties that can be added to the blend, and may provide a way of preserving the wine’s characteristics even as the climate of Champagne starts to more closely resemble that of southern France. A further variety, known as Voltis, has been selectively bred as part of a deliberate effort to prepare for the effects of a warmer climate. For many wine regions, that is going to be a wrenching shift. What makes European wine unique is the marriage of a particular grape and viticultural practice with a particular region’s soil, climate, and intangibles. That sort of thinking is going to have to change as the planet warms. If Europe’s winemakers do not want to experience the fate of medieval English vineyards, they’ll need to adapt before they are wiped out.

Burgundy without pinot noir grapes? Climate change pushes the boundaries of winemaking

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Climate change is affecting where grapes can be grown, calling into question geographical indications for wines like champagne and Barolo

Climate change is affecting where grapes can be grown, calling into question geographical indications for wines like champagne and Barolo