Jones studied viticultural climate data from 1948 to 2004 and found an increase in average growing-season temperatures worldwide of 2.3 degrees. Night temperatures warmed more dramatically than day temperatures, reducing the swing between high and low temperatures that is desirable for producing high-quality wine.
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Longer growing seasons
WORLDWIDE, he found higher temperatures during ripening, less frost, and longer growing seasons (from 20 to 40 days longer in Europe, up to 90 days longer in Napa Valley). Southern Hemisphere climate changes were less pronounced than in the Northern Hemisphere, due to the moderating effect of the higher ratio of ocean to land mass.
Jones believes those trends will continue during the next 50 years with worldwide average growing-season temperatures increasing an additional 2 to 3.5 degrees. Greater warming is projected for southern France, parts of eastern Washington and Central California. Temperatures in Spain and Portugal could increase more than 5 degrees, he says, which would make all but the high-altitude viticulture extremely difficult.
Those projections have set off alarms in Spain, says Pancho Campo, president of the Wine Academy of Spain. He organized the first World Conference on Global Warming and Wine last March in Barcelona, attended by more than 100 scientists, journalists, and winemakers. A second conference is set for February 2008. "In Napa, it appears that a lot of very rich people may have sunk a lot of money in the wrong place. We're suffering the same thing here in Spain," Campo says. "We had to drag the growers and vintners in to addressing global warming. Now, six months after the conference, it's unbelievable how attitudes have changed."
Miguel Torres, one of Spain's leading vintners, made headlines when he announced he was mapping soils of the lower slopes of the Pyrenees, 25 miles closer to the mountains than where his vineyards now are planted. "Last year was the hottest vintage in the history of the Spanish wine industry," Campo says. "Everyone is very concerned. It's starting to touch their pockets."
Hans-Rainer Schultz, a climatologist at Germany's Geisenheim Institute whose studies corroborate Jones' predictions, says it is difficult to motivate people to be concerned about change when, so far, it has been beneficial. "The coolest climates are feeling the effects first -- France, Germany, Austria -- and it's been positive," he says. How else can you explain lush red wines from Austria?
