Just how much control do vintners have over their microclimate, particularly as climate change poses an increasing threat to wine production around the world? Several are trying to find out.
These efforts are more crucial now than ever: Up to 70 percent of current wine-producing regions across the world will be unsuitable for wine production if temperatures increase more than two degrees Celsius, according to a recent review of more than 200 studies published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. Without radical action, scientists at NASA say the world is currently on track to warm between 2.5 and 4.5 degrees Celsius by 2100.
Already, the consequences are being felt in vineyards, as growers with centuries worth of records on harvest dates document earlier and earlier harvest dates. A Beaune record from 1354 to 2018 published in Climate of the Past shows significantly earlier harvests beginning in 1988, right around the time that the impacts of human-caused climate change began to be felt.
However, earlier harvests can create unbalanced grapes and decrease wine quality. Grape growers may not have control of the warming planet, but they do have agency in the fields they farm. From radial vineyards to dual-varietal trellises, vintners are rethinking vine orientation and training to protect their grapes from hotter temperatures.
Radial and labyrinth vineyard designs
Vineyards, like cities, are often laid out in easy-to-navigate grids. Simple rows make it easier and more practical to farm. Easier for humans, perhaps, but is it optimal for grapes? Two audacious experiments are testing that question in real time.
At Viña Don Melchor in Chile’s Puente Alto appellation, CEO and technical director Enrique Tirado planted a 0.4-acre experimental vineyard with 60 15-meter long rows of grapes to see how vineyards planted with radial orientation will change how grapes develop and ripen.
“We are exploring how row orientation and planting density affect the microclimatic conditions at the cluster level, and how that impacts the quality of the final wine,” Tirado says. “We are looking at temperature, solar radiation, the level of photosynthesis, and the quality and concentration of different elements. All of these factors play an important role in producing and ripening phenolic compounds in the grapes, including sugar, pH, and acidity.”
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