Even over here in Europe, you meet climate change deniers. The other day I had a discussion with an architect saying that the world has often seen climatic changes and survived. I answered him with a title of a well-known film about ALS: Yes, but not so much so fast, and I forgot to say: This time, no ice bucket challenge will help.
Which are the two states in the US and Germany mostly concerned about climatic change? Yesterday night the US ambassador to Germany, John B. Emerson, answered the question in his Carl Schurz Lecture, Shaping the 21st Century Transatlantic Relationship: California and Baden-Württemberg.
The reason surely must be viticulture, as Red Baron had learned the day before yesterday in reading two articles in Der Spiegel (No44, Früchte des Zorns not yet online) and the Badische Zeitung.
When I attended a wine-tasting seminar at the Staatliches Weinbauinstitut in Freiburg ten years ago, the experts told us they were working on grape varieties to grow in warmer climates. In his book 1000 Years of Annoying the French, written in 2010, Stephen Clarke hoped for better deals on champagne in England in the future with global warming causing ideal producing conditions shifting north from France towards vineyards with similar soil on the other side of the Channel.
In my youth, wine growers in Germany desperately tried to accumulate as much sugar as possible in their grapes by harvesting late. Praising their Spätlese (late vintage) wines, they still had to add sugar to reach the necessary degrees of Oechsle.
Times and climate have changed. With global warming, the budding and flowering of grapes have shifted in Baden to earlier dates in the year. In addition, grapes are now harvested early when sugar and acid are in ideal equilibrium.
What may still be suitable for the quality of wine in Baden becomes a nightmare for winegrowers in France. As I learned; for them, the increase in temperatures during the day is not the problem, but the warmer nights are. Warmer winters, too, make that those grapevines no longer come to rest. As one vintner said: Grapevines must sleep; otherwise, they are stressed, which directly influences the quality of the wine.
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When I attended a wine-tasting seminar at the Staatliches Weinbauinstitut in Freiburg ten years ago, the experts told us they were working on grape varieties to grow in warmer climates. In his book 1000 Years of Annoying the French, written in 2010, Stephen Clarke hoped for better deals on champagne in England in the future with global warming causing ideal producing conditions shifting north from France towards vineyards with similar soil on the other side of the Channel.
In my youth, wine growers in Germany desperately tried to accumulate as much sugar as possible in their grapes by harvesting late. Praising their Spätlese (late vintage) wines, they still had to add sugar to reach the necessary degrees of Oechsle.
Times and climate have changed. With global warming, the budding and flowering of grapes have shifted in Baden to earlier dates in the year. In addition, grapes are now harvested early when sugar and acid are in ideal equilibrium.
What may still be suitable for the quality of wine in Baden becomes a nightmare for winegrowers in France. As I learned; for them, the increase in temperatures during the day is not the problem, but the warmer nights are. Warmer winters, too, make that those grapevines no longer come to rest. As one vintner said: Grapevines must sleep; otherwise, they are stressed, which directly influences the quality of the wine.
In the progressively warmer French climate, grapes reach a high sugar content early in the year, with the build-up of tannin and enzymes lagging behind, thus changing the character of a terroir dramatically. Will we still be able to sip at a Medoc, Pomerol, Pauillac, Meursault, Chablis, and Pommard having the same taste ten years from now?
French winegrowers need not see pictures of polar bears on diminishing ice floes or Bangladesh below water. They already know: Le changement climatique, il est là.
French winegrowers need not see pictures of polar bears on diminishing ice floes or Bangladesh below water. They already know: Le changement climatique, il est là.
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| What will happen to my favorite Riesling growing on the south side of Freiburg's Schlossberg? |
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