How Climate Change's Extreme Weather Events Affect Grapes and Wine:

 We (Epona) joined the Porto Protocol a year or two ago; it's a collaboration of grapegrowers and winemakers, worldwide, who are focusing on "Green" issues--sustainability; adaptation to changing climate, etc. To join, they ask you to write a short case study about what you're doing or have done, to be more "Green" (we used our solar-powered, earth-sheltered winery, and our modern varieties of grapes as our "reasons to beg into the group"). Here's a report I wrote to my winery association:

Today, the PP held a discussion of experts from around the world, on "Extreme Weather Events." The panel included Gregory Jones, a research climatologist specializing in the climatology of viticulture. He is the Director of the Evenstad Center for Wine Education, holds the Evenstad Chair in Wine Studies, and is a professor and research climatologist in the Department of Environmental Studies at Linfield University. He conducts applied research for the grape and wine industry in Oregon. I think he was on the smoke taint panel for the WSU event last week?

Major points:

1. In Australia the hotter temps are causing growers to move to the cool sides of hills (KLE: Note: This is being done in Walla Walla), and to stop all leaf removal, and to adopt new canopy styles which shade the fruit.

2. We need to get politics out of the climate change discussion.

3. A number of major insurers have stopped insuring Oregon grapegrowers, due to increased climate-related claims. They are literally leaving the state.

4. Climate extreme events are being seen in every grapegrowing region. 

5. Mendoza, Argentina sees increasing summer hail events due to climate change.

I submitted this comment: "Growers should consider earlier-ripening modern varieties, which spend fewer days on the vine and thus are a bit less exposed to extreme weather events. Such as, avoiding some of the earlier Fall rains here in the US' Pacific Northwest, because they can be harvested before some of those rains." I also told my grapebreeder friends that if smoke is going to be more common, they should consider putting the tenteurier trait (colored juice in red grapes) into their grapes, as that allows a dark red wine to be made even if we press the juice off the skins immediately after harvest, thereby reducing the risk of smoke taint. Many of these guys are/were  research professors and/or very deep into practical science, and one responded that the tenteurier trait is expressed through a single identified gene and should not be too difficult to cross into grapes. At Epona we have three red winegrapes which are tenteurier: Golubok, VB Labelle, and Delicatessen. All of them are earlier-ripening than, say, Pinot Noir.

Each of us will make her/his own decision about what to change, and when and how to change it, in response to growing environmental threats.

Kenton

Wine Country fires are horrible this year

 This article describes the huge, numerous, and threatening wildfires threatening people and grapes. Deaths are already being reported. Huge areas are under evacuation orders.

Epona Farm is presently 17 miles west of the area under an Evacuation Level 2 Order (meaning, "be ready to go if we issue a Level 3 order"), from a large set of fires burning on the west slope of Mt St Helens. The fires themselves are 25-35 miles away from us. The winds, which have brought us so much smoke for 3 days now and at times completely obscured the sun, are about to shift, and by Saturday we should see clear skies again. At times the smoke has been at the "unhealthy" level.

Smoke taint is caused by smoke phenols (from burning wood) attaching to grape skins and binding to sugars. Because the phenols are bound to sugars, they are not detectable in the grape (unless you run a lab test, but the labs are backlogged for weeks and the grapes are ripe now). But once the wine is made, the alcohol splits off the smoke phenol and it re-appears in the wine. At small levels it can add an interesting and nice complexifying element, but at high levels the wine is ruined, and there is no practicable fix for that fault.

Dick Erath, one of Oregon's wine pioneers, just advised me that the Willamette Valley saw more smoke than this, for more days, in a past year, and yet there was no smoke taint in their wines that year. We're in the middle of grape and apple harvest, and we'll find out once the wines are made, whether they have smoke taint. At this moment, I feel fairly confident they will not.

The Willamette Valley (and Napa and Sonoma) are under even denser smoke, so that is a threat to many many high-value commercial wines. The first photo is from Oregon (from the article I've linked here), and the second photo is from our farm (near Woodland WA) yesterday.

We are really screwing up our climate

Read the story here: Budbreak of grapes in France is occurring earlier and earlier, putting the grapes at greater risk of a killing late frost. So grapegrowers are having to implement expensive approaches to fighting frosts. And ironically, they often use smudge pots to make the heat amongst the vines, which contributes to more climate change!

The answer is to globally reduce our hydrocarbon burning, starting with the dirtiest sets of emissions: The burning of coal and oil. It can be done, but we have to do it.

Climate Change Challenges Napa Wineries

It's not just the heat. it's the early Springs, late freezes, early Fall rains, wildfires, and power outages (as PG&E shuts down the grid to avert fires, even as wineries need power then).

This article makes it clear just how daunting it is to be a winery owner now, especially in a region such as Napa Valley, where wineries are losing fruit, business, and profits to accelerating climate change.

It's a bit easier up herein the PacNW. In most summers it doesn't get too hot, though we are seeing early rains in Fall, which are bad news. We haven't seen many killing late frosts, but we sometimes have late budbreak. Irregular weather presents many challenges. 

But we are an adaptable species. We'll see what happens. Meanwhile, all of us should be doing more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (photo credit: JIBC)

Epona Wine joins the Porto Protocol

Epona Wine is committed to organic and other sustainable practices in bringing both classical and modern grape variety wines to discerning consumers. It recently joined the important Porto Protocol, an international effort led by famed Port producers in Portugal, committed to addressing climate change through such steps as installing solar power, conserving water, insulating winery buildings, planting trees for shade and carbon capture, sourcing fruit locally instead of bringing it in from far away, and other similar means..

"The Porto Protocol initiative was started by Taylor Fladgate, a major Port house in Portugal,” explained Kenton Erwin, Epona's CEO. “It is being joined by numerous worldwide wineries and vineyards, and even heavy industry, with the shared goal to find and implement new ways to fight climate change."

"Grapes and wine are one of only a few branded fruits--where fruit is converted into a finished, branded product, such as Epona wines. Because of this branding, the wine industry has a special connection to its consumers, which puts us winery and vineyard owners in a unique position to address climate change with individual consumers. We can be important leaders in fighting climate change. And there is an economic upside to it: There is a large and growing market for Green products.”

For more information about Epona, go to eponawine.com.

Read more about Porto Protocol here.

Climate change and grapes

This article scares me: We're seeing, today, the changes in climate that were recently forecasted for 2050!

There are some big losers in Grapeworld, and, probably, a few winners. Poor Australia, hit with more drought and too much heat. When ripening happens too fast, the flavors don't always have time to mature, and yet the grape must be picked, or else the sugars will be so high it's akin to making vodka, not wine.

Even in the US and Europe, flavors are shifting from the red and purple fruits (which I love, as expressed in wine) to black fruits (which I don't like because they can also include flavors like licorice and tar). And higher summer rainfall caused more humidity, which causes more Powdery Mildew on the grapevines. And we are seeing earlier ripening, in our SW WA vineyard, for sure.

(photo credit: Google images)

Italy's winegrapes suffer from climate change

Check out this article about how climate change is harming winegrapes in Italy. European winegrape production is way down lately, due to harmful weather patterns.

I think grapebreeders need to be making new grapes that feature the red and purple fruit flavors. Any grape that tends to express black fruit flavors will, if exposed to more heat than is ideal, develop flavors of tar, licorice, etc., which I don't like. This has long been a problem in parts of Australia, and is becoming a problem in the hotter parts of California and, now, Europe.

Check this out: A map showing areas of the world that will lose, and gain, the ability to grow quality winegrapes

This map shows scientists' best guess of the effects of climate change upon the world's winegrape regions.

Note that Tri Cities, Red Mountain, and Walla Walla will see loss of vineyard acreage due to the increasing heat. Ditto for the areas south of the Great Lakes. The Willamette Valley gains the ability to grow more kinds of winegrapes. Bordeaux and Napa are huge losers, as are much of Italy and Spain. This is why growers in Champagne are planting in southern England. Yes, southern England. It's a game-changer, folks.

The article is here.

Vineyards Marching North

This article says that French wineries are buying up land in southern England, in preparation for the continuing climate change which would make it difficult to continue growing Bordeaux varieties in SW France and Rhone varieties in SE France. Those climate changes are already noticeable but the point of Bordeaux leaving Bordeaux is surely not very imminent.  But perhaps it's not as far off as one might think.

We see the same threats mentioned as to Napa Valley in California, and I hear more and more about Syrah planted in the Willamette Valley. Another way this is manifested is the planting of grapes higher and higher up the mountains; as the mountain slopes warm and undergo fewer deep freezes in winter, they become more favorable for grapes. There are wonderful grapes being grown in New Mexico's mountains (check out Gruet sparkling wines), so perhaps we can look for quality vineyards in Colorado's mountains someday? Can you imagine Chardonnay being grown here:

And (this sounds impossible to one who has grown Pinot Noir here in NW Oregon, and so often could not get it fully ripe), could it be that someday NW Oregon will produce a great Cabernet? No, surely that cannot be--Cab is one of the sun-hungriest grapes--but who knows? If a trend continues for long enough, strange things will finally happen.

Ecological effects of vineyards pushing into new places

See this article.

As the heat builds in the southern climes, vineyards are pushing northward. Whereas the Romans grew winegrapes in southern Britain, for 2000 years afterward it wasn't possible, until starting about 10-20 years ago, winegrapes are making a comeback there. In southern British Columbia, vast areas have been planted to winegrapes, with great success, in areas that were formerly just grassland/desert. Places like Greece and southern Spain will be the losers (as might also be Napa Valley).  In the Willamette Valley our grandchildren may see  Pinot Noir give way to Syrah, and Pinot might become more successful around the Puget Sound.

It would be wrong to bet against such trends.

Meanwhile, the planting of vineyards in former wild places does have an impact on flora and fauna. That can be mitigated somewhat by use of modern hybrid grapes, which require less or no spray to control fungal and other diseases, and by using organic practices and avoiding irrigation. But the grapegrower must fence to keep out animals like deer, and this changes the ecological system. Study is needed to learn how to minimize the adverse effects of such changes. Perhaps vineyard areas need to remain surrounded by woodlands and grasslands that remain accessible to wildlife. This is what we have at our Woodland WA vineyard, the Epona Vineyard.

(the photo is of a vineyard in Cornwall, England. Photo credit: The Guardian, UK.)