Always look on the bright side of life: Robert Russell
Nobody in the wine industry thinks that the world is going to convince governments that climate change must stop, at all costs, immediately, because we want our Burgundy grown near Beaune, and our Champagne near Epernay, as it has been for years. Wine research and development specialists are working on long-term plans as we speak, and the planning window is 30-50 years or more. Recently there were three successive 100-mile per hour windstorms in Great Britain; the world is not going to blow away. It is a fixed system.
Somewhere else, there was less wind. In 10 years, the world will be 2.0 degrees Celsius warmer, on average, than in was in the 1850s. Some areas receive less rain, some more, and the seasons of the year, when the rain comes are critical to wine. Experts say the weather of the last 50 years, will not return any time soon, and will not be back in even our grandchildren’s lifetimes. If carbon emissions stopped magically, the effects of past emissions would continue for 50-100 years or more.
The problems are many: with the increasing heat affecting grape production, a lack of water, and grapes in areas that are not now compatible with the status quo. Driving electric trucks will not change these factors in the short run. However, the development of grapes more resistant to heat, and in need of less water, will be attainable. There will not be less rain; it just will not be in the right places or times for our needs. Production areas will have to move towards the poles.
Traditional areas will probably transition to use as olive or date production, or other warm-weather crops. Wine grapes will then migrate further up mountains and hillsides. There will always be wine; it just will be different, maybe even better. As the weather changes, corollary problems include pestilence. Grapes will have to be developed that can resist pests and disease. This will allow less need for pesticides, and with fewer applications, and the cover crops within the vineyard rows, there will be less soil compaction and potential loss of topsoil. As reported frequently, winemakers are sensitive to these changes, and they pragmatically look at components that they can control. One of the first items that can lower the carbon footprint is lighter wine bottles. The cost of transportation from farm to market is a large expense.
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However, climate change is abstract in that it is a slow and gradual modification of average climate conditions, and is difficult to understand, in the moment, based on personal experience. According to international researchers, among younger groups, the amount of personal concern and willingness to take action are lower in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, than in other countries, with less affluent populations. Solutions will come from understanding the facts at hand. Wine is primarily an agricultural product.
The grapes used to make it are grown and harvested, for fermentation. This means that wine production is vulnerable to the effects of climate change from the health of vines, to the taste and quality of wine produced. Burgundy has records, some of the longest written records on earth, with harvest dates that go back to the 1300s. Recent harvests are the earliest on the record, over the last 700 years. Temperatures have climbed so much; harvests now begin an average approaching 20 days earlier than they did prior to 1980.
However, these changes are not universally negative, especially in places where grape cultivation suffers from cool temperatures, or the rain comes at inopportune times. Vines are more tolerant to water deficiency than other crops, and the stress can even be desirable, spurring root growth, as they seek a water source below. However, too much stress can hinder photosynthesis, delay or inhibit bud ripening, lower winter hardiness, or cause the vine to stop producing altogether. If the earth continues along this trajectory, the United Nations posits that the planet is on course to experience a global mean temperature increase of nearly 5.76˚F between now and the end of this century.
Thousands of years ago, when the temperatures crept up just four degrees; it made enough of a difference to end an ice age, this is a big deal. Rising sea levels, which, according to NASA, will surge at least 26 inches by 2100, will have the capability to destroy and alter coastlines, and the climate of nearby viticulture areas. Severe floods are also possible and could leave coastal vineyards in Portugal, New Zealand, California, and New York: completely underwater, or subject to the constant fear of inundation.
Some other areas will suffer saline groundwater intrusion. While we all recognize that wine is primarily an agricultural product, which the same statement also applies to all of our other sustenance production. Thus, “the times they are a-changing”- and so must society’s lifestyle to an extent.
Stay healthy, and Cheers
Contact Robert Russell at rob@rlr-appraisals.com.
This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: Robert Russell
