French winemakers can raise a glass to global warming
Warmer summers mean riper grapes
Near this medieval town in southwestern France, the Château Rochebelle and its Grand Cru vines have produced red wines under the watchful eye of the Faniest family since 1847.
The owner, Philippe Faniest, has high hopes for his latest stock, thanks to a warming climate’s beneficial impact on the Bordeaux wine-producing district.
“The 2015 vintage is one of the very best years,” he boasted. “It will be a wine that can be kept for 30 years.”
Faniest said he anticipates that the 2016 grapes, yet to be picked, will go down in history, too: “The 2016 vintage will be a great year because we had so much sun.”
Bordeaux’s fortunes have been on the rise in recent decades, as “good years” such as 2015 have become more frequent.
That’s because warmer summers mean the fruit ripens quicker. Instead of in October, the grapes can be harvested sometimes in September, which is more likely to be dry.
If there are heavy rains just before or during harvest, the fruit swells and dilutes, which inevitably makes the wine less palatable, according to wine experts.
“People are very happy in Bordeaux and in vineyards all the way up to Champagne,” said Benjamin Bois, a researcher at the University of Burgundy who focuses on climate and how it affects wine production. “I wouldn’t say they’re foolish.”
The Met Office, the United Kingdom’s weather service, said French temperatures have risen by 0.65 degrees Fahrenheit per decade since 1960, and this warming is likely to continue.
Beatrice Laurensan, an assistant director at the Château la Gafflière vineyard in St. Émilion, said all the 2015 vintage wine has been sold. She said the increasingly warmer summers have been good for the harvests.
“We don’t beg people to buy our wine. They come knocking on our door,” she bragged. “The term ‘bad vintage’ is gone.”
Bois warned that although climate change may have been kind to Bordeaux wines, it will eventually push the good years further apart as temperatures rise. Bordeaux needs only to look to its southern neighbors. “Mediterranean regions, including Châteauneuf du Pape, already have water stress” because of lack of rain, he said.
“We don’t beg people to buy our wine. They come knocking on our door ... The term ‘bad vintage’ is gone.” Beatrice Laurensan, the Château la Gafflière vineyard