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DIJON, France: A hot year is normally associated with
a vintage year for wine growers but global warming could, by the end
of the century, have adverse effects and already poses a major
challenge to vineyards in southern France and California.
“The first studies on the
consequences of global warming show that warming favors the quality
of the wine, said Gregory Jones, an Associate Professor of Geography
at the American University of Southern Oregon.
Speaking at a conference on the
impact of global warming on the wine industry in this wine-making
city, he continued that “in the future, warming could become
disastrous in numerous regions.”
He said the threat might come
from a series of challenges, citing problems with irrigation,
diseases, and soil erosion resulting from flooding.
For his part, Bernard Sequin,
from the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, said:
“Heat, it’s sometimes a good thing, up to a certain
threshold.”
The heat wave which hit Europe in
2003 gave some idea of what is in store in the future.
“[This] was generally positive
for the harvests in the north of France but less so in the south,”
Sequin said.
The regions most threatened by
global warming are those with the hottest climates, such as southern
Europe and California.
If nothing is done about global
warming, only the coastal regions of California, cooled by the ocean
breeze, will be good for cultivating vines by 2100, Jones believes.
Facing this challenge, scientists
and professionals from the wine industry are searching for
responses.
Gemma Mollevi, a specialist in
Spanish vineyards, suggested planting vines shallow in the earth, to
better conserve water and shade the grapes from the sun, and
developing controlled irrigation.
“Measures are urgently needed
in the hottest and driest zones of Spain,” she said.
In the Bordeaux region, research
is already underway, Jean-Claude Hinnewinkel, a local wine industry
specialist, said.
The scientific work is
concentrating on how certain varieties of vines adapt to heat as
well as well as counteracting the perverse effects of strong heat on
the taste of the wine, which tends to be too sweet and alcohol
levels can be too high.
Hinnewinkel, a geography lecturer
at Bordeaux University, called on the industry to adapt
“rapidly” to the challenges and “rethink its organization to
adapt to this new reality.”
 --AFP
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