Monday, April 29, 2013

New vs. Old World Winemaking: Climate Will Be the Ultimate Decider




Harvest at Yering Station, Australia, 2008. Photo Credit +Kevin Luther 


French coming to Australia to learn winemaking?!?
“I came here to Australia, to learn how to make wine like Coca-cola,” my French colleague explains. It is the wine harvest season of 2008 in the Yarra Valley of Southern Australia and I am sitting at the dinner table with my fellow cellar-hands, trying not to choke on my wine in shock. We are from places as far and wide as Argentina, France, and the United States. We are enjoying a rich, homemade French dinner, which oozes sensual, buttery aromas that pair perfectly with the fruity yet peppery red wines we’ve smuggled from the cellar. You’d think we are in heaven, but we are bone tired and quickly learning that 16-hour long days do not breed the kind of cultural sensitivity and curiosity that one need’s in such close living quarters.

The French man either fails to notice our shock or fails to care, continuing his exhortation that in France making wine is a true art that his family has passed on from generation to generation.  In this particular day’s version of his rant, he does not delve into family politics or curse the inheritance tax he will face some day. Today, he bemons the factory-line efficiency of “New World” winemaking.

“Wine like Coca-Cola,” he repeats. “They have nothing to teach me in how to make wine. My heritage taught me to make wine. I come to Australia to learn how to manage a winery like an assembly line at Coca-Cola.” His look of distaste fades a bit as he lifts his forkful of rich French food to his mouth, savoring the flavors for a moment then washing it down with the wine.

His distaste for the Australian winemaking industry’s innovative factory-line mass-production approach to winemaking and their ability to produce a consistent wine for a lower cost may seem a bit betty.  These days, many traditional winemaking regions are a bit touchy- their heritage is threatened if they cannot find a way to make an aging business model profitable. When the French man inherits his family’s winery he will not only face a stiff inheritance tax, but also tight regulations on his grape growing and winemaking practices. The lack of flexibility in the French winemaking system, once a way to ensure only the highest quality wines are produced, is now hindering the ability of winemakers to adapt to the challenges of climate change. This has led to what many agree is a decrease in French wine quality. Meanwhile, “New World” wines from Australia, Chile, New Zealand, and the USA are seen as increasing in quality as time progresses. In Australia, he argues, all that matters is efficiency and the bottom-line; the art is lost.

Unpredictable climate demands quick adaptation from wine industry
Wild, unpredictable storms coupled with surges in heat and prolonged droughts are beginning to take hold as our world’s climate patterns change.  Wine grapes are a crop particularly susceptible to alterations in weather patterns and many have dubbed wine grapes as the agricultural ‘canary in a coal mine’. This vulnerability is in part due to wine grapes being a perennial crop which requires large capital investment only to take years to yield substantial and profitable fruit-usually about 7 years before a vineyard sells their first bottle of wine. This 7-year product cycle means that the decision on what grape to plant takes on an element of fortune-telling. The added variable of climate change has only made this prediction more difficult.

To ensure profitability, care must be taken to plant a wine varietal that will not fall out of fashion with consumers yet is also suitable to a region’s expected climate in 7 years time- and importantly, when the vineyard is reaching its performing prime in about 25 years. Wineries must consistently produce a superior product to stand a chance at success in a market that is becoming increasingly competitive and overcrowded. While upstart vineyards in the New World are able to adapt to environmental changes by planting grape varietals suited to the new climate, the Old World is locked into its tradition, barring innovation or adaptation.  

The French man might do well to focus his attention not on the New World’s production efficiency at Coca-Cola and wineries, but rather on their adaptability. It is the latter which many New World Winemakers cite as the source of their ability to adapt.

To further complicate the matter, the planet’s changing climate has resulted in heat waves and droughts that not only lead to smaller crop yields but also result in jammy, alcoholic wines that are unappealing to some consumers.

“At the old, cooler temperatures people were used to a grape ripening where the flavors and sugar develop slowly. A lot of vineyards still have the same vines in the same spot, but now it’s too hot. The heat makes the sugar spike ahead of the flavors, and you get raisins before you get the flavors you need to make great wine,” says +Kevin Luther, associate winemaker and manage of Wise Villa Winery, in Northern California.

How Australia might come out on top
Recent work published in the scientific journal Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment demonstrates that regions like Australia, which have flexible and liberal approaches to wine making and its regulation, are already adapting much better to our world’s changing climate than regions like France, which have rigid cultural and legal restrictions on wine making (Lereboullet, 2013). While Australia’s wine makers may not be any younger than those in France, they benefit from a youthful, New World approach to wine making.

Mount Mary Vineyard is the perfect example of the forward thinking Australian winery. The variability that climate change has brought to Mount Mary’s local weather patterns has become undeniable and they are already considering and starting to implement climate change adaptation plans. Mount Mary has already planted a new vineyard on a Southern facing plot of land, hoping it will provide a cooler ‘microclimate.’ Currently, they are considering other means of climate change adaptation, ranging from irrigation to planting new, more hearty varieties to completely relocating altogether. Owner, Dr. David Middleton, is concerned that all of these options may compromise the “reputation of consistency” that they have worked so hard to build. The situation is dire and he expresses concern that, “our varieties may no longer ripen in a way that suits our chosen product style. This is critical to our reputation which has been built on consistency over many years.” Exasperated, he proclaims, “costs are high, risks are high but the alternate outcome of not delivering on 40 years of reputation is not something we want to think about too much.”

French winemakers are in a similar position to their Australian counterparts: climate change is affecting their ability to produce consistent high quality wines. Winemakers in France, however, face even greater hurdles when it comes to climate change adaptation. The glory and reputation of French wines was built upon stringent and numerous restrictions, and the majority of these laws remain today. Regionally restricting the varieties that could be grown was a policy that ensured only grapes of the highest quality, that were suited to a region’s particular climate, were grown. This preventing sub-par ‘table wines’ from leaking out onto the market ruining a region’s hard-earned reputation. Potential climate mitigation strategies like irrigation, dealcholization, blending, planting alternate varietals, are either restricted, illegal or seen as economically unfavorable. It appears that the laws that once allowed France to become the world’s most prominent wine region may lead to its demise, as climate change plays a growing role in the success of individual wineries.

Only time will tell which wine regions will suffer the most from climate change.  Some will be able to adapt, but undoubtedly, some will not. So make sure you savor your favorite wine for a moment longer today, as it too may be eventually sacrificed upon the variability of climate change.


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