California Air National Guard photos by Master Sgt. David Loeffler
Santa Rosa Fire
Water drops on the Santa Rosa wine country wildfires on Oct. 12, 2017.
When the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus coined the phrase “The only thing that is constant is change,” he probably wasn’t thinking about global warming.
But for 21st Century winemakers and grape growers, the words of Heraclitus serve as fair warning: Get ready for change and you can prosper, or ignore climate change and watch your business die on the vine.
At the BC Wine Institute’s ‘Insight Forum’ in Penticton on March 13, researcher Dr. Gregory Jones told a packed house that climate change offers both an opportunity and a threat to wine makers and wine regions throughout the world.
Jones is the Director of the Centre for Wine Education at Oregon’s Linfield College, and a researcher in the field of Environmental Studies.
Jones presented his findings on the impact of climate change on cool climate grapes, making it clear the entire wine industry is in for a seismic shift over the coming decades.
In short, you may welcome a 90 point Pinot Gris from Ireland, but have to say goodbye to a Russian Valley Pinot Noir.
“If you look at climate zones in Europe, you are seeing a shift to higher growing areas to compensate for higher temperatures,” Jones said. “In North America growing zones are pushing to the north, and to the coastal areas in BC and the Western United States, and we’re even seeing more suitable wine growing areas in more northern BC valleys.”
That wave of change is global, Jones says, and will dramatically impact most or all of the world’s wine regions by 2040. How much it changes depends on the rate of global warming, and specifically on warming in any given area.
Maps from Jones and Schulz 2016
Climate Change Maps
In one dramatic chart, Jones showed that with an average increase of just 1-degree celsius the wine map in Europe would look much different than it does today. Many areas in France or Germany would become too hot for cool climate varietals, while most of England and parts of southern Ireland would become viable new wine regions.
However, if global temperatures climb by more than 1-degree Celsius on average, the map changes much more dramatically.
Much of Jones’ research was done in the Willamette Valley in Oregon State, and he found that over 15 of the last 20 years the average temperature has been between 2 to 3 degrees hotter than the average established between 1895 and 2017.
Projections of warming in the region could see average temperatures increasing by about 1-degree Celsius by 2040, but the bigger concern is the expected increase of three ‘standard deviations’ in the period between 2040 and 2060.
“With 1 degree of warming the climate envelope would shift to the warmer end of the spectrum (for cool climate grapes) and would change our way of producing cool climate wines,” Jones explained. “A change of 2 degrees shifts us to a whole new varietal mix, and an increase of 3 degrees means really big changes, basically (the Willamette Valley) would have a more ‘Bordeaux-like’ climate.
“That is projected to occur in this region between 2040 and 2060.”
Neither Jones nor anyone else has done an in-depth study on the impact of global warming on wine production in Canada, but Jones does say his research gives some indications what could happen in places like British Columbia.
Today, the Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys produce by far the largest number of wine grapes in BC, with a very small minority of wines produced in the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island, and the Thomson Valley.
In future, the Okanagan Valley might lean far more heavily toward warmer climate wines, even producing wines more typical of those you might see in Napa or Bordeaux. But other regions that are currently considered borderline or even unsuitable for wine production could soon become viable wine production areas, just like England and Ireland in Europe. Staying on top of more precise climate change predictions for various regions will be critical for producers who want to remain prosperous, or even to increase their operations.
Information from Gregory V. Jones, Director, Center for Wine Education, Professor of Environmental Studies, Linfield College, from the BC Wine Industry Insight forum, March 31, 2018.
Climate change
“Cool climate (wine production) zones are expanding with new opportunities,” Jones says. “The wine map is changing all over the world, for many reasons, and continued warming is highly likely, so increasing our adaptive capacity and reducing our vulnerability to climate change will be key to our sustainability.”
Jones also points out that global warming remains a double edged sword for the wine industry. While warming may create opportunities for some, it creates a serious threat for others. Some wine regions could see temperatures rise to the point their industry is no longer viable, so some wine regions will be lost even as others are created.
As well, climate change is not evenly distributed throughout the world. Global warming causes pockets of change, so one area might see increased rain and cloud that makes it unsuitable for wine production, even though the average temperatures might have increased. Other areas, like BC, Portugal, and California have experienced catastrophic wildfires that have greatly affected wine production or wine tourism.
“The research shows that major impact events like forest fires will have increasing importance in the future,” Jones said.
Some wine makers and growers in the audience called on Jones and local scientists for more research on the impact of global warming in British Columbia, and Jones said he is eager to extend his research on the topic into other wine growing regions.
