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Grapes under fire: how growers are battling climate change chaos to save wines
Grape growers face mounting challenges from climate change, adapting with innovative practices to protect their vines and craft premium wines amidst extreme conditions, writes Kathleen Willcox.
Grapes are, by nature, finicky. They can only grow in certain temperatures and conditions—typically, the growing season should average 55-70 degrees Fahrenheit (13-21 degrees Celsius) for optimum results.
Climate change has turned trying to farm grapes into the equivalent of performing operations in the eye of a hurricane. Every decision and moment still counts, and the already inherently tense and fraught conditions suddenly feel perilous, even existential.
How can growers manage to farm in conditions that are constantly in flux?
Drastic climate changes
Wildfires are arguably the most potent and easily understandable symbol of climate change. Wildfires have doubled around the globe in the past two decades, and that increase in both frequency and magnitude is linked directly to climate change, according to a new analysis published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
But there’s a lot more change happening on the ground and in the air.
Nine of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1998 in the U.S., and 2014-2023 was the warmest decade globally on record. Extreme heat waves are three times more prevalent and longer than they were in the 1960s. Precipitation has increased across the world overall, although some regions are getting less precipitation than they were previously.
Precipitation also isn’t as steady and predictable as it once was; records for one-day precipitation events in the U.S. are on the rise. (Nine out of the top 10 years for extreme events have occurred since 1995).
In wine country in the past decade, everyone has seen firsthand the shocking variety of extremes that climate change can bring, from record-breaking heat waves and wildfires to years-long droughts followed by severe floods, random bouts of devastating hail, and early and late frosts.
Change doesn’t come cheap: fallout from extreme weather events has cost the world around US$2.8 trillion in the past 20 years, according to the World Economic Forum. How is wine country doing its part to weather the US$16.3 million per hour cost of extreme weather, while also planting the seeds for premium wine success?
On the ground changes: soil health + trellising tweaks
Grape growers are war-weary, but battle-ready, making tactical and strategic adjustments on the ground as they witness shifting seasonal norms and forecast future ones.
Study after study has shown that soil health is essential for healthier, more climate-resistant crops, carbon sequestration and better yields. Conventional agricultural practices, like intensive soil tillage and the use of chemical fertilizers, degrades soils and damages the soil microbiome.
“From heat domes, droughts and water curtailments to overly generous rainfall, it seems like we’ve seen it all in recent years,” Ned Nuemiller, viticulture director of Seghesio Family Vineyards, which has six different ranches from Northern Alexander Valley to the Russian River Valley.
As the unexpected becomes expected, Nuemiller says they are focused on increasing organic matter on the ground, with 20-30 different species of plants of cover crops.
“I really like the resiliency they bring to the vineyard,” he says, adding that using a “mulch blanket a few times a year really helps manage soil moisture evaporation and decreases vineyard canopy temperatures.”
Nuemiller says that Seghesio is pivoting away from quick-fix conventional farming’s prescriptive agricultural model to a long-term regenerative strategy. The transformation has enabled the vineyards to withstand the opposite extremes without the impacts that they were seeing before, and has had other outsize benefits, like reducing the need for irrigation.
“Soil health has increased as we’ve walked away from herbicide applications and become Ok with having living plant material on the vineyard floor year-round now,” he says. “It helps stabilize temperatures, but also slows down rainfall so we can maintain and capture more gallons per acre on an annual basis, reducing our need for gallons that we need to pump.”
Regenerative agriculture
At Honig Vineyard and Winery in Rutherford, the team is working on improving soil health with the help of sheep.
“The entire vineyard is cover cropped and we collaborate with neighbours to bring in a contract sheep grazing outfit to mow the cover crop in the spring prior to bud-break to improve soil health,” says Kristin Belair, director of winegrowing and sustainability at Honig.
The sheep’s gentle massaging of the soil with their hooves and the contributions they make with their au naturel fertilizer increases soil health. And that plus Honig’s permanent cover crop also helps boost soil moisture, create cooler soil temperatures, preserve air quality, prevent topsoil loss and enhance the biodiversity in the vineyard, including that of the soil microorganisms.
Growers are also focusing on newer trellis systems to contend with warmer temperatures on average.
At Castello Di Monsanto in Western Chianti Classico, proprietor Laura Bianchi says the past few years of extreme rainfall and wild heat waves during the growing season have created a number of immediate issues like landslides and sinkholes, downy mildew outbreaks and asynchronous vine development.
Aside from patching up the ground, pruning with care, opting out of chemicals in favour of more regenerative practices and executing multiple hand picks, the team at Castello Di Monsanto is aiming to create the most hospitable and adaptable environment possible for their vulnerable grapes in the future.
“We are working with a vine nursery to grow new vines with the historical clone of Chardonnay we planted in 1976,” Bianchi says. “We have seen that during this extreme weather, the vines of Chardonnay from 1976 are stronger than the ones planted in more recent years.”
Bianchi also pins the current and future health of the vineyards on the 250 acres of forest surrounding them.
“This green belt is a veritable lung of enzymatic biodiversity, where everything is in perfect balance,” Bianchi says. “It generates a biological harmony that is indispensable for the vines to be the richest and purest expression of the essence of their terroir.”
Water management: from floods to droughts
Climate change has underlined the challenges the globe has been facing for decades over water. About 2 billion people can’t access safe water to drink, and about half of the world’s population is dealing with a major water shortage for at least part of the year. Terrestrial water storage is dropping about 1 cm per year and has for the past 20+ years. Those disparities and problems are expected to increase as water stores continue to decline and sea level rise decreases freshwater availability.
Water, of course, is one of the key inputs wine growers depend on for a viable crop. And in many European regions, despite increasing droughts, growers are not allowed to irrigate.
Take producers and regions like Heredad Segura Viudas in Penedes, Spain. Josep Palau, director of production, explains that while the winery dates back more than 800 years, the adverse effects of climate change in the last few decades have wreaked unprecedented havoc.
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2023 was a year of extreme drought, with harvest levels down by more than 45% in the most affected regions, Palau says. In 2024, rainfall improved slightly, but the harvest levels were similar due to the effects of unexpected hail and frost.
“The sharp reduction in the grape harvest has a significant impact on many markets,” he explains. “We have been meeting with different agents in the Cava sector and the Cava Regulatory Council to seek measures to help us overcome this situation.”
Temporary measures
In April of 2024, the Cava Regulatory Council approved three extraordinary and temporary measures in its regulations, but the changes didn’t come in time to save the 2024 harvest. Moving forward, Segura Viudas joined Penedes Irrigation Community and will be able to use regenerated water to irrigate more than 61,000 acres of vineyards.
“This is the first time that the sector has a long-term alternative and a solution to the water deficit caused by climate change,” Palau says. “It is a pioneering solution and will allow us to irrigate with reused water, unlike other irrigation communities that use water from rivers or reservoirs.”
Other producers like Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco denomination are also contending with erratic precipitation in the extreme. In 2024, there was 40% higher than average rainfall from April to mid-June, then 40% drier than average rainfall between July and September.
The rainiest springs since 1959 have all occurred since 2013, which are resulting in numerous landslides that are costly to repair. To assist its more than 200 producers dealing with the effects, Diego Tomasi, Conegliano Valdobbiadene’s director, says the Consorzio is introducing new landslide remediation techniques, creating a series of micro-ponds to collect excess spring rain and store for use during summer droughts and drawing up a hydrogeological risk map based on soil types and slopes so that greatest risk areas can be monitored via sensors.
The solution, Tomasi says, seems like a compromise between economic and environmental sustainability.
Belair at Honig says producers in Rutherford are also hoping to balance their needs as wine growers with their desires to be responsible members of the community.
“We joined a consortium of landowners and collaborated with several agencies to restore the Rutherford reach of the Napa River,” Belair explains, adding that following the work in 2011, the vineyard flooding that was becoming increasingly seasonal completely went away. “We have seen the river nearly bank several times, but the channel was able to manage the flow. We also restored habitat for salmon and steelhead, as well as other animals like river otters and beavers.”
Leveraging Tech
Technology and artificial intelligence can’t solve all of the world’s problems, but researchers and wine growers are finding that they sure can forecast and combat them with more accuracy than the naked eye.
Melissa Whitaker, enologist and operations lead at Kiona Vineyards, which has 274 acres under vine across five estate vineyards within Washinton’s Red Mountain AVA, says they have come to rely on a variety of tech tools amid early frosts, wildfires, chronic heat waves and the worst heat dome on record, interspersed with cool and damp growing seasons.
“The extremes play our vines under additional stress,” Whitaker says. “The vines are not at an optimal production level, and it weakens their defence which leaves them more susceptible to infection, injury and damage from other external and internal stressors, including wounds to the vines, insect pressure, and virus and bacterial infection.”
Kiona’s RX kit includes experimental drone applications of beneficial insects to combat pests and diseases without chemicals, and reducing tractor passes. Tractors, Whitaker notes, not only increase a winery’s carbon footprint, but they compact soil and degrade its—and eventually, a vine’s—health and fertility.
“We are also trialling different imaging and sensor-based equipment to pinpoint where weak areas are so that we can hone our vineyard management plan to specific areas,” Whitaker says.
The precise allocation and overall preservation of resources also drives many of the initiatives at Domaine Carneros, explains Allison Celini Wilson, director of vineyard operations.
In addition to selecting drought-tolerant and water-tolerant rootstocks to match with the micro-climates of their diverse vineyard blocks and soil types, they utilize a weather station to track temperature, precipitation, relative humidity and other important factors that help inform their irrigation, disease prevention and vine nutrition protocols.
“We also designed drainage systems that catch and divert water, which we are able to store and use during the growing season,” she notes.
Thinking outside of the wine bottle
Some winemakers are even thinking outside of the wine bottle.
“One of the primary characteristics of climate change is that it’s completely unpredictable,” says Linsday Hoopes, proprietor of Hoopes Vineyard in Napa. “We need to be fluid and flexible and figure out what other luxury products we can make. We have to diversify beyond just wine, but that doesn’t mean we will take anything away from the wine that we are producing.”
Hoopes has watched her winery and region deal with climate extremes and wildfires that have rendered entire grape harvests unusable for premium wine.
“Every year has turned into a little R&D project,” she admits. “We have made red and white wine vinegar infused with other products from our property. We created shrubs, which as a mother of young children feels like a wine-adjacent way for people like me to participate in the wine tasting experience, without consuming a lot or any alcohol.”
Hoopes has also made sodas, probiotic beverages—and Napanac.
“That turned into the most ridiculous saga,” she says. “We created it in 2019 after the fires because we couldn’t release a wine. I wanted to turn our smoky grapes into something beautiful.”
So she turned them into a Cognac-style brandy. But the powers that be were not pleased.
Adapt or die
“I got kicked out of the Napa Valley Vintners over it,” Hoopes says. “They didn’t want any alcoholic grape products that weren’t wine labelled with Napa. But if we can’t react to the natural disasters and stay true to Napa while still integrating new ideas and alternatives, where will we be?”
Hoopes, who is currently battling Napa County over her right to host tastings at her winery, fears that Napa is “killing itself.”
“How are small businesses like mine going to survive with people operating in an atmosphere of fear?” she asks. “People will be afraid to innovate. And how will agriculture survive without innovation? Luxury changes, what we want from luxury changes, and we have to be able to adapt.”
Wine is a US$330 billion business that about 1 million people rely on for direct employment. But wine is more than an economic engine. It is also a part of the human experience and one that must be treated with care and forethought if it is to be preserved.
“At Castello di Monsanto, we consider sustainability not just a practice, but an ethical legacy,” Bianchi says. “It reflects a commitment to the present by protecting the environment, natural resources and social and cultural heritage. An era of unpredictable and unusual climate scenarios requires us even more to intensify the relationship between man and nature, basing it on collaboration between the vineyard and the entire ecosystem.”
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