![Tempranillo (also known as Ull de Llebre, Cencibel, Tinto del Pais and several other synonyms) is a black grape variety widely grown to make full-bodied red wines in its native Spain.[1] Its name is the diminutive of the Spanish temprano ("early"),[1] a reference to the fact that it ripens several weeks earlier than most Spanish red grapes.](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/tempranillocluster-1.jpg?quality=83)
The International Organisation of Vine and Wine has stated it is not concerned about the impact of climate change, at least in the short to medium term.
According to Reuters;
Good news for wine drinkers: a leading international body says grape vines are a hardy little number and can survive climate change, at least over the medium term.
Earlier harvesting, changes in grape varieties and new wine-making processes have already helped counter the impact of the harsher weather hitting vineyards across the globe, the head of the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) says.
“Wine producers all over the world have adapted to the changes and the plant has a capacity of adjustment that you can find in no other plant,” OIV Director General Jean-Marie Aurand told Reuters in an interview.
He cited the example of the Canary island of Lanzarote where vines are grown in lava which absorbs overnight dew – virtually the sole water they receive in the summer – and releases it during the day.
In China, he said, more than 80 percent of production acreage is located in regions where temperatures can drop below minus 30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit) in winter. Growers cover vines to protect them and uncover them when spring comes.
This kind of broad range of growing conditions seems common. Pick up any vegetable seed packet from your local garden shop, and you will see instructions for growing the plant in a wide range of climatic conditions, in different regions of your country.
Staple crops like Wheat are grown in conditions ranging from Canada and Siberia, on the edge of the Arctic, to the blistering hot Australian Outback.
Warmth loving plants such as tomatoes sometimes have to be started in a greenhouse, when grown in cold countries. On a commercial scale, this is often achieved by covering acres of new seedbeds with plastic.
The successful adaption of rice to a wide variety conditions is even more spectacular. Dr Peter Jennings probably deserves a post of his own – he literally saved millions of people in Asia from starvation, by selective breeding, providing the world with new, high yielding varieties of rice.
Other plants like strawberries thrive in cold England, but they also thrive in subtropical Australia, providing you keep them well watered.
Even coffee bushes can cope with a broad range of environmental growing conditions. There are commercial coffee growers in Australia, who produce coffee in climatic conditions far removed from more traditional alpine equatorial coffee producing countries.
In my opinion, it is no exaggeration to suggest climate scares about food production in a warmer world are nonsense. It is good to see industry bodies like the International Organisation of Vine and Wine starting to push back against such claims.
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Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
Of course they’re not worried: increasing CO2 means more plant food. Besides, in prior warming periods, there were wine grapes grown in Roman and Early Medieval Britain. If the alarmists are right, we might soon be sipping fine Scottish merlots. (McTavish Winery, anyone?)
Phineas: They do actually have wineries in Yorkshire. However, the grape varieties grown to make the wines, Ortega and Pronto have been specifically engineered to grow in a Northern Europe climate. The varieties of grapes that the Romans grew were grapes that grew in a Mediterranean climate. Romans preferred sweet wines. In England at the time of Chaucer, people would add honey to wine to sweeten it.
Don’t expect to see any Chianti being produced in Yorkshire in the near future.
Not even a fine Scottish pinot noir?
Great Britain and northern Europe have few natural sources of sweeteners (honey is and exception). But grapes do make sugar and at about 20% can get you a wine of about 11% alc., such that it will store well. More sugar in the grape and both alcohol content and residual sugar can go up. Before bottles and corks, casks of large capacity (hogsheads, pipes, to tuns) could bring alcohol-calories and sweetness to London from Porto and others warmer and sunny places. Lots of politics and religion involved. London ends up becoming the center of wine trade. A fascinating history.
The wine I drink looks nothing like that. More like this…
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=boxed+wine+images&qpvt=boxed+wine+images&qpvt=boxed+wine+images&FORM=IGRE
Chateux de’cardboard…
A few tenths of a degree here or there is not going to make any difference. What does affect the quality of wine is taxation, at least here in California. It makes wines that need to be aged in the winery very expensive. So vintners are making wines so that they can be released early and drunk immediately.
This is all so insane!
The Vikings called the Boston area ‘Vinland’ due to the amount of grapes there during the Medieval Warm Period! And of course the Romans grew wine grapes all over Europe during the Roman Warm Period when wine drinking was nearly universal and you can bet that the beginning of the Wine God cults of the Mediterranean basin era was called the Minoan Warm Period! Duh!
And did everyone roast to death? Or get drunk? The answer is obvious. Cheers! Bottoms up!
Well …. SURPRISE, SURPRISE, …… I guess the above proves that the Global Warming “greenhouse” gas CO2 only works its “magic” when it is trapped inside of an actual greenhouse that prevents its convectional “mixing” with the “outside” air.
YUP, CO2 “warming” is here today, …. and gone tonight. Even if the CO2 is “trapped” inside of an actual, factual greenhouse.
And ps, …. the majority of all flower and vegetable plants that are sold in the US for “springtime planting” are grown in “greenhouses”. For personal use, they are also grown in “hot beds”, “cold frames” and on south-facing window sills.
The only credible risk to food production worldwide is a sudden cooling caused by a large volcanic eruption (VEI 7 and beyond) or a substantial asteroid/comet impact. We have no protection to the former one whatsoever except maintaining several years worth of food reserve. God says it should be 7 years, but currently the post Cold War world economy is running on 3 months, which is clearly insufficient for disaster recovery.
In case of market shortage there is no upper limit to food prices, because whoever can’t pay, will become very dead soon, getting excluded from any further economic activity, including recovery attempts this way. Therefore number of fatalities can easily exceed billions.
Fortunately we have this biofuel craziness, so surplus crops to be turned into alcohol and burnt in cars can be used to feed people in case of a worldwide famine instead, only we have to act quickly, what means there should be proper legislation enacted in advance.
As for asteroids, we do have the technical means to protect ourselves. We still don’t have a complete list of asteroids on Earth-crossing orbit, so we need a better observation network, but once an early warning is given, they can be diverted using spacecrafts propelled by traditional rockets.
The real worry is comets zooming in from the outer solar system, targeting Earth directly. First of all detection is more difficult, so we need an ongoing all sky survey using a space based detection network, dispersed in the inner solar system, so even faint incoming sources can be identified based on their parallax. Then comes the tricky part, because no traditional rocket is able to intercept such projectiles in time.
We need nuclear propulsion to do that, because that’s the only way to have sufficient thrust for an extended period, needed for acceleration towards the object, deceleration on approach, followed by acceleration to the opposite direction to follow it closely, then nudging it out of the way gently, but firmly.
That’s why we need several Orion class spaceships in reserve, on low Earth orbit, developed &. tested, ready to launch any time on alert.
Unfortunately it all relates to mere survival, not wine production.
According to the IPCC the human race cannot survive a changing climate. Apparently the human race is less hardy than grapes.
With this new knowledge about grapes, the disastrous climate change situation is somewhat mitigated with the survivors being able to drink heavily of the fruit of the land.
European wine makers are more concerned about cold wet summers. Extreme heat and drought is a problem, but generally, hotter drier summers produce good quantity and quality.
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/weather1.pdf
This doesn’t support either view but using more or fewer vineyards as a proxy is a fail.
Times have changed. Economies have changed.
Look at beer. How many “microbreweries” are there now? Maybe fewer than there were then? Back then that’s all there were. The same for wineries. There was a demand for both beer and wine but no huge corporation with a mass distribution system. No demand for “crafted” beer or wine.
Today it is a common error to project our present values or what we value on those who lived in the past. (And judge them accordingly.)
Ended my thought to soon.
It may be profitable to sell a “crafted” wine from a more northern region than it is practical over the long term.
(I’m no expert. Just throwing a bit of sand into the “caGW” machinery.)
And breweries back then ……….
Cincy: Queen City to Porkopolis
A lot of corn went down the Ohio River – in barrels
Flat bottom with whiskey
French wines used to have too little alcohol (and wine producers used to add sugar to produce more alcohol); now there is too much alcohol (and some producers remove alcohol from wine).