CNN/AP: Climate change could sour wineries

[DeepModem Mom]

Climate change could sour wineries
Researchers say rising temperatures would shrink growing area
Monday, July 10, 2006


Fermin Manzo picks clusters of grapes during a night harvest in Napa, California, last year.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Climate warming could spell disaster for much of the multibillion-dollar U.S. wine industry.

Areas suitable for growing premium wine grapes could be reduced by 50 percent -- and possibly as much as 81 percent -- by the end of this century, according to a study Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The paper indicates increasing weather problems for grapes in such areas as California's Napa and Sonoma valleys.

The main problem: An increase in the frequency of extremely hot days, according to Noah Diffenbaugh of the department of earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue University.

Grapes used in premium wines need a consistent climate. When temperatures top about 95 degrees they have problems maintaining photosynthesis and the sugars in the grapes can break down, Diffenbaugh said in a telephone interview....

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/07/10/climate.wine.ap/index.html

[1monster]

1. Time to lay in a vast wine cellar as the basis of a substantial

inheritance for our grandchildren??

$650,000 for a two bedroom bungalow? Will you take two cases of 2004 Mer Soleil Chardonnay Monterey instead?

Or maybe four cases of San Sebastian special reserve?

[Pissed Off Cabbie]

2. The Grapes Of Wrath

Back in May, it was reported that the champagne vineyards of France were threatened by leaking nuclear waste. Now, we find our own wineries in peril. The bourgeoisie will have to learn to drink beer, I suppose.

http://pissedoffcabbie.blogspot.com/2006/05/i-get-no-kick-from-champagne.html

[citizen snips]

3. I hope beer is okay

because I don't care about wine.

[MissB]

5. Probably. Hops is a much easier crop

as is barley.

Although I think that with the increased temps, we'll see an increase in Oregon wines. There is a great deal of land in Oregon that has been planted in grapes in the last decade or so- and with the milder climate of Oregon, I'm betting that the crops here will be more likely to survive, even if they have to shift locations slightly.

[citizen snips]

6. That is good to know.

Farmers in North Carolina are also starting to grow grapes for wine instead of growing tobacco.

[customerserviceguy]

22. Not just Oregon

but here in Washington, winegrapes will do well. Global warming is going to change a lot of agriculture, perhaps crops needing much hotter weather will do well in California instead. Perhaps coffee??

[aquart]

8. Wine is healthy. Beer is crap.

Beer used to provide vitamin B-complex. Now? Feh!

[BrotherBuzz]

12. Beer may be crap but California winemakers agree...

"It takes a lot of beer to make wine." ;)

[KansDem]

4. Gallo's BIG payoff...(or should we say "trade-off?")

As one of the "Gang of 18" Gallo has been working to repeal the estate tax. With the Coup of 2000, it's dream was nearly realized. Unfortunately, it took the installment of The Chimp who is contented to sit idly by and let the earth warm up, thereby aversely affecting the grape crop.

Such irony!

[alfredo]

7. A Fairbanks Merlot? Or a nice Chardonnay from

Anchorage?

[AngryAmish]

9. 46 wineries listed in the Domesday Book.

Climate was warmer then (or vines hardier).

[Lisa]

14. England also had famines back then ...

Along with the warmer climate came catastrophic winter rains that periodically wiped out crops. (Terry Jones discusses this in "Medieval Lives".)

[AngryAmish]

15. Really?

I would like to learn more about this.

[Lisa]

18. check out his book (same title) -- there's an interesting chapter in it

I've been reading up on historical climatology (starting with Michael Ford's book from 1982, which discussed some of the ways in which people have been trying to decipher regional climate changes based on historical records, back 2000 years or so). And I just happened to stumble across Jones's discussion in "Medieval Lives", the chapter on peasant farming, of how complex the "Medieval Warm Period" actually was. He mentions that once the climate started to cool off a bit, from the crusades into the 1300s, the weather actually improved for agriculture! Drier sunnier summers, and the winters were still pretty mild (and not as many disruptive storms) -- apparently this resulted in good harvests and famines were pretty much eliminated in England for almost a century. So I guess that tends to confirm the "double bump" Gore showed in his movie, for the Medieval Warm Period. Which was less than a degree Centigrade warmer than conditions today, based on the global average dataset I saw a while back.

Terry Jones, by the way, is the same guy who was with Monty Python ... he has a graduate degree in history, and has been doing some very interesting non-fiction stuff lately.

One of the people I work with is studying tree ring records, and he's found that the warming wasn't as continuous, or covered as large an area, as historians had been thinking. Apparently there are parts of North America which weren't in synch with conditions in Europe during the Middle Ages. I haven't cracked the latest dendrochronology/climatology papers yet, but I did see some results from this at a recent science seminar I attended.

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. 350 vineyards in England now, and 10 in Wales

There are about 350 vineyards in England, most of them concentrated in the south but one of them in Durham the most northerly outdoor vineyard in the world, and 10 in south Wales. The grapes they manage to ripen, thanks to the warming influence of the Gulf Stream and, increasingly, global warming, are vinified in more than 100 wineries, some of them producing dozens if not hundreds of different labels.

http://www.jancisrobinson.com/winenews/winenews050623

The most northerly vineyard is at Spennymoor - 54 degrees 40 North.

[theHandpuppet]

10. Care to try some of our WV wines?

I'd recommend the wines from Potomac Highland Winery in Keyser, WV. They have a very nice Chardonnay (and a website) http://www.potomac-highland-winery.com/

http://www.weekendwinery.com/wineries/Wineries_WV.htm

[Tesha]

11. C'est la vin. (NT)

[MadHound]

13. Global warming is also threatening the fruit orchards

Every fruit tree needs a certain period of dormancy, with the temperature below forty five degrees, normally referred to as chill hours. For example, most apple trees require a period of 500-800 chill hours, some require more. If they don't have this sort of down time, they won't produce fruit well, if at all.

And yet the winters have gotten steadily milder, and it isn't unusual for there to be days in December, January and Febuary well above forty five degrees, ranging up to seventy degrees. This trend of increasingly mild winters is really starting to worry many orchardists, including myself.

So it's not just the vineyards that are suffering problems from the heat, but the fruit industry in general. If this trend continues, we'll all soon be planting tropical fruits here in the states, except for the fact that they really wouldn't grow well in our soil. And meanwhile, many fruit growers will go out of business. Oh well, I guess I could always grind my trees up into wood chips for BBQ grilling:banghead:

[DeepModem Mom]

17. Thanks for making this point. I hate to imagine how many...

things of this earth are being affected by this change.

[Lisa]

19. and then there's the pathogen problem ... and effects on pollinators

A whole bunch of ecological relationships could be thrown for a loop. There are concerns in BC that various types of tree-eating insects, which would normally be killed off by frosts, are going to multiply rapidly. This could have a serious impact on fruit production ... even assuming that we've got enough water to irrigate areas as they dry out.

I was talking to one grower recently, who said that her bees (which help pollinate her trees) were very poorly -- some kind of disease that seems to be spreading more rapidly (instead of being cool and dry, the winters have been a lot damper, which aids in the growth of some kind of fungus).

And as you say, MadHound -- we can't simply plant guavas and bananas, even if the climate does get hotter! Rediscovering old cultivars that do okay under increased heat, predation, and water stress, might buy some time. (And I'm sure the agribusiness labs are keen to crank out the latest in GMO fruit trees.) But that likely won't help the small farms much.

[unda cova brutha]

16. bushco doesn't care about how global warming affects wine

he goes for the hardcore booze like Jim Beam.

[amandabeech]

20. The wine and fruit growing regions around the Great Lakes

may be able to take up some of the slack.

Right now, it is too cold for good red wine grapes, and, in many cases, Chardonnay and Sauvingon. Many of the areas are also less moist than the Pacific Northwest, and are expected to become somewhat drier.

I would imagine that Sonoma and Napa would lose Pinot Noir production, but might be able to put in grape varieties that tolerate warmer weather. Perhaps the type of grapes used to make that nice Spanish wine?

[kineneb]

21. shift of varieties

Here in Lake Co., north of Napa, we also grow lots of grapes. In fact, the area was a major wine grape region before Prohibition. The grapes were then torn out and replaced with pear trees. I don't know what grape varieties are grown here, but it does get quite a bit hotter here, and we don't get fog in the summer. Napa and Sonoma Co.s will have to shift the varieties they grow if the climate warms. They can still grow grapes, just not what they have now.

Fruit production in the Central Valleys will have a problem if winters get warmer. It is already really hot there in summer, so the misery index will just go up. (Thank goodness that a humid day, in most of inland California, is maybe around 40%, otherwise the heat would be deadly.)