This is a topic that every wine enthusiast should be at least somewhat familiar with. Grapes have proven to be an excellent bellwether for what the media usually calls “global warming.” This is due to their vulnerability to extremely hot days as well as the fairly narrow temperature bands within which each variety can truly thrive. The wine industry has already seen some substantial changes due to climate change and, if the climatologists are to be believed, even larger changes await us in the future. Could this mean that the future will bring...
The end of Napa as a quality grape growing area?
The dominance of Puget Sound Pinots?
The burgeoning market for Danish wine?
These are all things that may just come to pass some day and very well may not. The extent of man's role in climate change is still a matter of great debate, as are the relative accuracies of the various climate models that serve as the foundation for a substantial chunk of the scientific literature on the subject. What really can no longer be debated is that climate change has happened and continues to happen.
For wine enthusiasts looking to come up to speed on the subject, I recommend the following as a very solid overview on the subject:
Corie Brown's article “Climate Change and the World Wine Map”, as originally published in the Los Angeles Times.
Grape Radio's podcast “Global Warming and Wine.”
**For reference purposes, it has been my experience that we Americans just do not speak the Celsius language well. As the climatologists in the podcast provide temperature figures in degrees Celsius, 1°C = 1.8°F. So, if someone says they expect the mean temperature of Region X to go up 3°C in the next 20 years, that would be 5.4°F.
The end of Napa as a quality grape growing area?
The dominance of Puget Sound Pinots?
The burgeoning market for Danish wine?
These are all things that may just come to pass some day and very well may not. The extent of man's role in climate change is still a matter of great debate, as are the relative accuracies of the various climate models that serve as the foundation for a substantial chunk of the scientific literature on the subject. What really can no longer be debated is that climate change has happened and continues to happen.
For wine enthusiasts looking to come up to speed on the subject, I recommend the following as a very solid overview on the subject:
Corie Brown's article “Climate Change and the World Wine Map”, as originally published in the Los Angeles Times.
Grape Radio's podcast “Global Warming and Wine.”
**For reference purposes, it has been my experience that we Americans just do not speak the Celsius language well. As the climatologists in the podcast provide temperature figures in degrees Celsius, 1°C = 1.8°F. So, if someone says they expect the mean temperature of Region X to go up 3°C in the next 20 years, that would be 5.4°F.
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