Wednesday, February 20 2008

Climate Change, Grapes and Technology

Hot enough for ya?

Ever since Al Gore and the IPCC invented climate change it's all you hear about in the news. And so it should be, as it's going to radically change the world we know into something completely different. As the sage once said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." And it'd be a shame to miss what's happening in the World Climate Change and Wine conference going on in Barcelona now, because between short-sighted wineries, clueless reporters, self-serving techno-fetishists and The Great Satan, it's more or less a circus, minus the elephants.

While I'm pleased that the commercial wine industry has seen fit to put climate change on the agenda, I'm less pleased to see important movers and shakers acting like someone took out their brains and replaced them with spreadsheets detailing short-term profit goals and ROI requirements.

Short-sighted wineries include Louis Roderer, quoted in Decanter in October 2007:

. . . Jean-Baptiste Lecaillon, chef de cave of Champagne house Louis Roderer recently seen touring vineyard sites in the UK, (was) unconcerned by the two-degree temperature rise over the past eighteen years in the region.

'Today, global warming in Champagne is a good thing because we have more consistent vintages,' he said. 'It's much easier to ripen Pinot Noir.'

So, if his house is on fire he'll be happy that at least his bedroom is warmer? Lecaillon seems to think that global warming will simply cease after it profits him. Perhaps he's counting on hiding in his cave when it gets too hot outside.

Someone who only does the math with his bank-balance is Michel Rolland. Mitch is delighted with climate change. The man working hardest to wipe out terroir in our lifetime, quoted in LA Times February 20th couldn't be more pleased:

Rolland dismissed concerns about climate change. "Perhaps the warming will stop? We don't know," he said. "So far, climate change has been very good for us."

Well, sure it has, Rollie! You get to doctor up your jam-and-vodka wines with micro-ox and oak, and cash in. Of course you do your work around the world, although your scourge is felt worst in Bordeaux. Mind you, not everyone is coining it like you, nor in agreement with your cheery outlook. Dr. Richard Smart, referring to the Chicago 2007 conference on climate change and wine in Decanter had this to say:

Notable to me was that whom ever put on the program very conveniently failed to include any climate scientists, nor viticultural scientists with climatology skills. What was left was today's wine producers, probably in various stages of denial of impending climate change effects on their business, and unlikely to be well read on current science of the situation.

The only reason to be optimistic is if one is a producer in cool or warm regions, and in a region which does not have a fixed reputation for a style of wine. So one can understand some optimism in the New World; who will notice if as yet uncharted regional boundaries, and varieties change. But if you are in Bordeaux for example, with centuries-old reputation for variety and wine style, things will not be so easy. I do not accept that “canopy management and rootstocks” will offer relief . . .

Of course, what does he know? He's only a trained scientist and a respected viticulturalist. Meh!

The big trouble here is that vineyards and wineries living the hardscrabble life of cool-climate growing are licking their chops at cashing in on a massive shift in climate. Here in my own province in British Columbia plantings are going mad in anticipation, even in the lower mainland where it's hopeless to try to grow decent vinifera varietals. Heck, just this morning I got a call about setting up a winery in Bella Coola, well into BC's north country. My advice? Wait forty years and plant Grenache.

But it's not going to work out so well for hot-climate wineries. If you're already working as hard as you can to limit the heat your vineyards get, planting only varieties that can take searing temperatures and sunshine, what's left? Not much, according to Dr. Smart:

With our present varieties, there is little room to move as temperatures climb. Our global experience tells us that table grape and raisin production is better suited to very hot climates, not wine production. Yet this is where the world has invested major infrastructure to produce much of the world's bulk wine. In Australia right now we have a major drought, maybe caused by climate change. What is for sure is that there will not be enough water in the River Murray to produce the normal quantity of wine grapes.

Australia, Sicily, Pulia, Greece, Southern France . . . raisin country. No more Yellow Tail for you!

By far the biggest wiener at the conference is best described by Alice Feiring in her blog. She is attending the conference (thank goodness somebody with an operating cerebellum is there) and compares Santiago Minguez to 'Ming the Merciless', from the old Flash Gordon serial.

Minguez, who directs the enology program at INCAVI and is president of the enology commission for the OIV (International Organization of Vine and Wine) berated those who water their ‘little gardens’ at their beach homes but who also cry out against grape irrigation. (If he had said watered their lawn I’d have had more sympathy for his point of view).

He fumed at the EU’s stupidity for not allowing the Spanish wine industry to "adjust for global warming." Minguez was jonesing for alcohol removal from either spinning cone, electrodyalisis or reverse osmosis. Presently, high end wines are allowed alcohol removal from wine on an 'experimental basis." It’s amazing how many people are experimenting for years. He also railed, "Get over it, in a few years everything we eat will be genetically modified." It was as if he was yelling at the audience to take their cod liver oil and stop complaining.

Jeepers, says Ming, technology got us into this mess, technology can help us cover it up! Why stop global warming when we can just 'adjust for it' ? Let them eat GMO's!

I'm kind of hoping we get this whole global warming thing sorted out. I'm resigned to not getting my jetpack, my flying car or my vacation on Mars like they promised me on Star Trek, but I'd rather not sizzle like bacon in a pan where I used to go ice-climbing. Letting profiteers, poltroons and snivelers sort out our climate problem won't cut it. I'm with Alice: those climate panels need a humanist to temper their blinkered ignorance of the greater problem.

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