Given the introduction of new grapes being made available to some lesser appellations in the near future, it is pretty obvious, that the Bordelais themselves are concerned. Recent vintages seem to confirm they have reason to be. Alcohol levels are on the rise, and while the wines have proved very appealing to some critics, they are far less so to some who remember old style Bordeaux. Not that you cannot find sub 14% wines, but the trend is against it, and perhaps the whole understanding what constitutes and defines Bordeaux is changing.
My question is if the trend continues, would it be even possible to make the old fashioned sub 13.5% alcohol wines that showed so much terroir, or will we forced to drink only an international type of wine with a Bordeaux label?
Will poor exposures and vineyards start to become more valued so that vigor is reduced by the quality of the land vs. lack of heat in past to keep old-timey Bordeaux alive?
On a somewhat serious note, how is a grape like Touriga that is more heat tolerant going to remind you of old time BDX when it tastes nothing like Cab, Franc, or Merlot?
Get used to riper, is my guess or Franc and PV will need to be more prevalent, the % of Merlot nowadays is adding to softness and alc%.
Clearly it’s an issue. I don’t know how much effect it’s having now. How much effect does a few degrees have when compared to other things that have been happening in “modern” Bordeaux? Have hang times/harvest dates changed? Has canopy management changed? If some of that were undone, how much temperature effect would be left? Not asking to counter your point, but wondering if other things can be done to counter the increased temps other than planting different varieties or moving to different sites. What other effects would that have?
It’s hard to know how much is weather and how much is conscious decisions to pick later. I’d guess a bit of both. And, on the weather issue, you have to look at diurnal swings, and not just average temps or average highs. And you can probably need to focus mainly on the growing season, not the winter months. So it’s not an easy question to answer.
A few years back, I dug out climate data on German wine growing regions to settle an argument with someone who contended that winemakers were consciously making wines sweeter. It was pretty striking how much warmer the vintages there have been starting in 1999. That’s not Bordeaux, but nothing is that far in Europe. I’m sure there’s ample data on Bordeaux temps if someone wants to poke around on the Internet.
I agree, perhaps both. There are producers doing just fine right now, so I think the bigger issues, today, are the conscious decisions made in the field, how/when the grapes are picked and how the wine is made. What happens next 10, 20, 50+ years, who knows.
I, for one, will not complain if more Cab Franc of Petit Verdot shows up in the cepage.
I couldn’t find a good Euro map, but the US map is cool. The Department of Agriculture is coming up on 100 years of mapping this. The linked map is from 1971 onward.
I think it’s a learning curve. In the 90s, efforts were made in precisely the opposite direction: more Merlot was planted, canopy management was changed to give greater exposure to the sun, all because of difficulties in getting the stuff to ripen and of course the fruit was picked later. All that received wisdom is now obsolete, so it’s a question of adapting to the new conditions, probably by getting out the old textbooks and using more rather than less later-ripening grapes. But the biggest influence will be the consumers: if enough people continue to enjoy and buy the “modern” international style, not much will change.
I’m not old enough nor experienced enough to remember many wines from 1976, but apart from the different taste, were the alcohol levels much higher than usual?
At least in Burgundy, according to what a few older vignerons have told me, because of the drought causing vines to shut down, 1976 was quite low in potential alcohol. So they were often chaptalized by several degrees. The prevailing wisdom at the time was to add tartaric acid to compensate for the additional volume gained by chaptalizing, so the wines were both chaptalized and acidified. I think that has a lot to do with why so many of them were / are so firm to this day.
Without commenting on how local climate is changing in Bordeaux, how much of the “changes” there over the last few decades have nothing to do with Climate? Napa wines changed radically, with those changes having little to do with climate.
Bordeaux should be the least worried major region. Cabernet (both kinds) is a pretty heat-flexible grape, they have a lot of freedom in cepage and vineyard location, and they are starting from a pretty cool and rainy baseline. I think Burgundy should be more worried. Pinot is more fragile and their entire system of vineyard designation and ranking was set up based on a much cooler weather baseline. At least they get to acidify!
Exactly. Average ABV in Napa cabs rose by something like 1.5% over a 15-year span, beginning in the late 80s or early 90s, as I recall. And I don’t believe anyone was claiming big climatic changes in the region in that period.
While I agree that Merlot is more likely to succumb than Cabernet, the are a number of wines in the Graves that are already showing signs of overripe grapes and relatively high alcohol wines.
Regardless of whatever effect the fraction of one degree temperature difference might make in wines, as far as I can tell, producers around the world who choose to make lower alcohol and higher acid styles of wines around the world still seem perfectly capable of doing so. I think what we are seeing in Bordeaux is driven by producers, consumers, critics, consultants, stylistic choices, and so forth.
It would be instructive to see the pick dates of producers. If some Bordeaux producer has been picking on average the same date for decades and using generally the same vineyard and winemaking practices, but the wines have gone up a percent or two in ABV, then that might suggest my view above is incorrect. Is there any evidence that is the case?
one of the things that makes me not as keen on Bordeaux during warming periods is the fact that its very hard for a basic consumer to figure out what kind of exposure the vines that made the wine in the bottle have. In Burgundy, its very easy to figure out the more northern facing exposures that can help mitigate the heat or something similar. in bordeaux, unless you’re there looking its (relatively) harder to find out. obviously this isn’t the only thing that influences the wine but its a helpful way to help differentiate some years I think. for example, I know that in the last few vintages in Montalcino I definitely steer towards the wines with vineyards north of the village because I think it helps with the heat!
It’s surely true that you could make high alcohol overripe wine before global warming, but I’m not sure the reverse is true. As the summers heat up, it gets harder and harder to produce what we think of as traditional wines. In CuP wines below 14, even among the most traditional producers is a thing of the past. Prior to 1998, 13.5. was quite usual. Bordeaux may well follow in tnat ath.
You think producers in CdP are trying to make lower alcohol wine but cannot due to global warming? Is there any evidence of that?
It seems like producers who wish to make lower alcohol styled wines are perfectly able to do it. I don’t see Arcadian’s alcohol levels rising over the years.
My latest shipment of Kosta Browne has pinots with 14.1 and 14.0 alcohol, down almost a full percent from where they were 15 years ago. Pax Mahle has gone from making 15+% wines to wines in the 12s and even 11s.
