Hmmm, maybe there’s something to that “Wines grown in England during the Medieval Warm Period” after all. I think maybe the French are upset that Scottish wine might be served with kippers rather than truffles. Oh the horror!
From the UK Telegraph:
Best wines will come from Scotland if climate change is not stopped, French chefs say
Prominent French chefs have given warning that the country’s wines will lose their complexity and the best produce will come from Scotland if the effects of climate change are not tackled.
excerpts:
President Nicolas Sarkozy was posed a stark choice: save French wine by clinching a deal at the international climate conference in Copenhagen in December, or see generations of viticulture slowly die out as vineyards cross the Channel and head north.
“As flagships of our common cultural heritage, elegant and refined, French wines are today in danger,” 50 leading names from the world of French wine and food wrote in an open letter. “Marked by higher alcohol levels, over-sunned aromatic ranges and denser textures, our wines could lose their unique soul.”
Among the signatories were Marc Veyrat, a chef with three Michelin stars, Mauro Colagreco, the award-winning chef, and Franck Thomas, who was voted the best sommelier in the world. The message was also supported by a host of domains from Champagne to Languedoc-Roussillon.
Climate change has been blamed for degrading French vineyards, with heatwaves, giant summer hailstorms in Bordeaux and new plant diseases.
The signatories said that if global temperatures rose by more than two per cent before the end of the century, “our soil will not survive” and “wine will travel 1,000 kilometres beyond its traditional limits”.
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Joanie (09:09:50):-
This Brit prefers Californian wine to French already!
Sarkozy’s an unlettered idiot when it comes to wine; French wines are unique because of the minerality of the soils, as in Germany. In California, most wines have low mineral content and are vinified flabby and overly alcoholic because of high sugar levels due to the warm climate.
The only thing on this planet that ISN’T threatened by “climate change” is Al Gore’s bank balance.
If we are lucky, maybe we can enjoy Sudanese/Algerian/Chadian wine during the next LIA.
“Marked by higher alcohol levels, over-sunned aromatic ranges and denser textures, our wines could lose their unique soul.”
They say “higher alcohol levels” like it was a bad thing! 😉
Having taken viticulture and enology while at university, I can state categorically that this is a crock. (Hey, classes where the final exam is a mandatory wine tasting of a dozen styles? What 19 year old kid would pass that up!) 2 C is NOTHING to wine grapes. Their range is far greater than that. From Alaska to Arizona, you can make wine.
But seriously, the only way this thesis could have truth in it is if the Italian and Spanish wines were poor, and they are not… (Different, yes, but mostly due to selection of grape varieties and choices in the processing). Just a few years ago these same folks were crying in their Burgundy over the horrible threat to French wines posed by the rapid rise of low cost, and excellent quality, Italian and Spanish wines. Can’t have it both ways, guys.
And yes, California produces some great wines. We’ve won “blind taste tests” in France with French judges. Reliably. And that’s the point I’d push most. California has very reliable weather as compared to France. Every year is a vintage year. France has much more variable weather, so you must know your years.
So exactly how is it that an industry that has survived a few hundreds (maybe even a couple of thousand…) years, including a couple of empires coming and going, a LIA, two world wars, and countless other insults; how is it that that industry will collapse in despair because the harvest comes a couple of days earlier in some years?
Yes, that’s right. Due to the higher variability of French weather, all that would happen (even if this nutty AGW thesis were true) is that the years that would have failed due to being too cold would then be “Vintage Years” and in the warmer years, the grapes would reach the proper “degree days” a bit earlier.
To get a significant increase in sugar and significant drop of acids would take a very large temperature change (like the difference between Napa Valley and Modesto – about 85F vs 105F mid summer). For those not familiar with California, Modesto is a major bulk wine making area south and inland from San Francisco in the very hot inland Central Valley. It is where “American Graffiti” was set. It is also dramatically hot in summer.
Yes, at VERY large increases of the 20F magnitude you can get a bit “thin” on the flavor side and a bit higher on the sugar (and so, alcohol). Yet there are some very nice wines made in the Central Valley of a quality, and quantity, that gives the French fits. California viticulture and enology is not defined by Napa.
We spent a fair amount of time covering how to make very good wines with high central valley temperatures (watch your brix closer and harvest faster when you hit “ripe”, for example), since some of the folks would go on to work for the local wineries… The “Ag school” I attended trains most of the vintners in California. We had a full winery, including crushers and brandy still on campus. And 3000 acres of crop land. This was NOT a light weight fluff operation. It’s an industrial scale formal U.C. major. If you want a Ph.D. in wine making, this is where you go in America. I was not “in the major”, but investigated it as an option.
So we have a (roughly) 10C range here with fine wines made at both ends, and they are getting worked up over 2C in a place with more than that year to year variation? The “maths” don’t add up…
I think I smell political posturing…
BTW, it is much harder to make good wine if it gets colder. There are a lot of things you can do to make good wines from early ripened grapes, but not much you can do to fix green hard sour grapes. The German wine makers have already pushed that “style” about as far as it can go. In New Zealand, they make some very nice wines, but their Reds are just not the deep rich flavor you get from Australia. They just don’t have the heat for it. But for making a middle red or a German style white, they are stellar. Move up to Australia, and you can make just about any style. They have the heat for it.
Same story here. California can make anything. Oregon makes fine German style and some “nice” reds, but it’s hard work to make a deep rich red. By the time you reach Canada, well, it’s a lot easier to make a German style white than a Burgundy…
And I guess that’s the 2nd major point I’d make. You CAN make wines, and good ones, all the way from Alaska to Arizona. And that means that 2c is one heck of a joke.
What, you think that’s hyperbole? Think again:
http://www.catchwine.com/wineries/alaska/
http://www.catchwine.com/wineries/arizona/
Mmmm – Antarctica Wine, Nunavut Brandy, Siberian Tequila.
Good find on this, the level of ignorance and arrogance is… well… french.
Sarko’s just trying to keep the British and the US off Balance, with their Nuclear
Power, they can afford to watch US and Britain commit econocide…
The grapes of wrath!! LOL
The Joad family is moving to Scotland while the terrrrrrrrrrible warmth invades France – oh, the delicious irony, it’s all about the flavor…. He he heh ha ha ha hah!
Southern France is havong quite a heat wave for the moment – more than 40 celsius in many places. Spain and Italy are not safe either. In Spain, several places had 30+°C… during the night!
“Prominent French chefs have given warning that the country’s wines will lose their complexity and the best produce will come from Scotland if the effects of climate change are not tackled.”
Finally! It’s about time chefs weigh in on this.
Big flambé have kept them muzzled far too long.
I notice that on your map Chablis seems to have migrated to Provence.
What more proof of climate chaos do you need.
Since the alarmists are always on the lookout for proxies that support the A in AGW, I see an opportunity for a terrific grant proposal here. I propose to amass a collection from the vast stores of collectable vintage wine that exist from the last century or two and analyze them for the effect of CO2 over that time. Given the prices many of these bottles command, the grant will necessarily have to be substantial, but with the billions of dollars flowing around in climate science that shouldn’t really be a hindrance, particularly if I hint, none to subtly, that I expect to confirm a high CO2 sensitivity. Of course, once the bottles are opened for sampling the residual material will have to be given proper biological processing, if you know what I mean, before disposal. Since my own scientific credentials are kind of weak, I’m open to accepting coauthors whose dedication to the spirit of scientific exploration would compel them to invest the commitment in time and potential hangovers in this potentially groundbreaking oenological experiment in climate science.
Jimmy Haigh (08:59:50) :
’single malt’
Save a wee dram for me Jimmy, and Lang may yer lum reek!
D. Cameron King
hehe if only hysterical global warming were true then we could get rid of French snobbery
Jimmy Haigh (10:47:42) :
“If we are lucky, maybe we can enjoy Sudanese/Algerian/Chadian wine during the next LIA.”
I have drunk Ethiopian wine, though ‘enjoyed’ would be an exaggeration.
—
Anyone remember the paper by Isobel Chuine et. al., purporting to predict temperature from grape harvest dates in Burgundy? I think Doug Keenan had something on it.
Her model gave 2003 as the hottest year. Unfortunately the model’s temperature was 2.4C higher than actually measured by Meteo France. Oops!
Maybe chefs could do better.
Flanagan, sounds like Paraguay or Argentina when I was down there a few years back. They make very good wine there, too.
Off topic but, you should be aware than man’s very existence threatens the earth:
Man’s Very Existence Causes Global Warming
Does anyone know how French wines from the incredibly hot summer of 2003 fared? Even if there is there is a 21st-century warming trend of the type that the IPCC predicts, summers will generally not be that warm for a long time. Did the 2003 heat reduce the quality of that year’s wines?
Flanagan (11:18:07),
no reliable Spanish station had a Tmin even close to 30 °C.
Of all the synoptic stations, the maximum value of the nighttime lows was around 25 °C at a couple of sites on the Mediterranean coast.
Look at:
http://www.uni-koeln.de/math-nat-fak/geomet/meteo/winfos/TTmineuropazoom.gif
Tmax in southern France was at most around 37°C yesterday. At 20:30 UTC you will be able to find tha updated map of today (18 Aug 2009) daytime Tmax around Europe at:
http://www.uni-koeln.de/math-nat-fak/geomet/meteo/winfons/
TTmaxeuropazoom.gif
Back to the vineyards, the season has started one week earlier in northern Italy while it will be late in Sicily that, as you know, is the southernmost part of Italy (even of most of Europe). The quality of white grapes is optimum.
http://www.winenews.it/index.php?c=detail&id=16825&dc=15
Sicilian wines are getting better and better in the last decades. In the past, southern Italy vines were used to make French wines more robust (because of its low alcohol content). Now southern Italy grapes are used to make excellent wines.
Flanagan (11:18:07) :
Southern France is havong quite a heat wave for the moment – more than 40 celsius in many places. Spain and Italy are not safe either. In Spain, several places had 30+°C… during the night!
==============
Still not a single Hotwave Record…just average Summer Temperatures.
A little web searching produced this, from Eric Asimov in the NY Times in 2007:
“THE 2003 vintage in Europe has been characterized as bordering on the bizarre. The weather was extreme, particularly in France, where a long, deadly August heat wave challenged winemakers.
Skip to next paragraph
Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
Multimedia
Interactive Feature
Wines of The Times | St.-Émilion
Related
Recipe: Turbot Poached in St.-Émilion (January 10, 2007)
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Readers’ Opinions
Forum: Wine and Spirits
Problems caused by the heat are most evident in white wines. Accelerated ripening meant acidity was lost, and because of this the whites lack their characteristic freshness and vivacity.
But red wines are another story.
From almost every part of France, I’ve found the 2003 reds to be remarkably successful.”
Oops — some sidebars got put in. The key parts I meant to quote are:
“THE 2003 vintage in Europe has been characterized as bordering on the bizarre. The weather was extreme, particularly in France, where a long, deadly August heat wave challenged winemakers.
Problems caused by the heat are most evident in white wines. Accelerated ripening meant acidity was lost, and because of this the whites lack their characteristic freshness and vivacity.
But red wines are another story.
From almost every part of France, I’ve found the 2003 reds to be remarkably successful.”
Hyperboreans wine!
Has HE bought some lands up there? …If HE hasn’t then don’t worry. Anyway, HE is not supposed to believe in his own prophesies, that is for us fools and believers alike.
Dave Stephens (11:17:02) :
The grapes of wrath!!…Not to laugh at all, those were years of drought and no grapes…
I had to get this one in: A good French Whine!!