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From
an IPCC document …
Wine and recent warming
Wine-grapes
are known to be highly sensitive to climatic conditions, especially temperature
(e.g., viticulture was thriving in England
during the last medieval warm period). They have been used as an indicator of
observed changes in agriculture related to
warming trends, particularly in Europe and in some areas of North America. In Alsace, France, the number of days with a mean
daily temperature above 10°C (favourable for vine activity) has increased
from 170 around 1970 to 210 at the end of the 20th
century (Duchêne and Schneider, 2005). An increase associated with a lower year-to-year variability in the last 15
years of the heliothermal index of Huglin (Seguin et al., 2004) has been
observed for all the wine-producing areas of France,
documenting favourable conditions for wine, in terms of both quality and
stability. Similar trends in the average growing-season
temperatures (April-October for the Northern Hemisphere) have been observed at the main sites of viticultural production in
Europe (Jones, 2005). The same tendencies have also been found in the
California, Oregon and Washington vineyards of the
USA (Nemani et al., 2001; Jones, 2005).
The
consequences of warming are already detectable in wine quality, as shown by
Duchêne and Schneider (2005), with a gradual
increase in the potential alcohol levels at harvest for Riesling in Alsace of
nearly 2% volume in the last 30 years. On a worldwide
scale, for 25 of the 30 analysed regions, increasing trends of vintage ratings
(average rise of 13.3 points on a 100-point
scale for every 1°C warmer during the growing season), with lower
vintage-to-vintage variation, has been established
(Jones, 2005).
Let's have a special toast to all of the human folly that has given us global warming. It wasn't all totally bad.
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