Wines helped by climate change

Certainly climate change is a disaster for the world, but right now it is a mixed blessing for wine regions. In some wine regions, the wines are getting too hot (higher sugar levels = more alcohol) while other regions are experiencing many more excellent vintages than ever before. And, in some regions the results are mixed - many great vintages of German wines but a lot of people lamenting that there are no true Kabinetts anymore.

Someone else can chime in on wines that they think have been hurt by climate change. This thread is about the wines you think may have been helped. Certainly, a lot of factors are involved - better farming practices, new generations of winemakers taking over, etc., and we may be wrong about the cause of the improvement of wines in a region or subregion, but this thread is for your thoughts. Hope is to capture wines that have improved where the market has not yet caught up with the improvements.

My vote is for red Chassagne-Montrachet. I am becoming a big fan of these wines. Maybe the wines were always this good (I don’t think so, but maybe my palate is just more mature (or feeble)), maybe I am just drinking wines from great producers like Ramonet and Bernard Moreau, but these wines seem to have more depth to them than I remember from my youth. I am thinking that the soil always gave the wine complexity (see the whites) but that the extra warmth of recent vintages are also giving them more body.

Any other thoughts? Anyone agree or disagree with me on this one?

Kentish pinot noir and chardonnay are benefitting.

I think Loire reds may be benefitting.

Just read an article in about how the Brits are working with Swiss grapes and think they’ll be able to do reds. The Swiss too are probably helped. Anywhere cold probably - NY and MI are making better wine than ever.

But in Spain they’re literally heading for the hills and afraid some places will just be too hot in the future.

All in all, I’m happy for the better vintages but I’d just as soon not be seeing it during my lifetime.

I think its sometimes hard to disentangle improved (or, rather, modified) wine-making from climate change. Also it will be a while before we have info on the impact on how the wines age.

Mosel

I personally think Champagne is getting better than ever. It seems like it’s been very seldom lately that there is not a declared year. And the 90s 96s 02s 08s and now 12 were all amazing vintages

Switzerland. There are some Syrah in the Valais region reminiscent of Northern Rhone wines.

I think the ‘right now’ bit is key. I suspect most of the regions that may have ‘benefited’ to date won’t be the same in 20,50,100 years.

Ontario, Great Lakes regions in US generally. Producers used to have to hang reds to dehydrate and get sugar levels up. Now fruit is ripening along the razors edge that used to be Burgundy. With money and time, equipment and techniques are getting better allowing for even better handling of fruit that is getting riper. Agree, lots of factors here but technology and information are clearly leveling the playing field for many wine regions.

German reds, especially pinot noir (Spätburgunder).

Southern England might be the biggest short term winner.

For me, more Saar than Mosel. The misses in the Mosel used to be underripe vintages. Now, they are vintages with insufficient acidity. IMHO, in some of these vintages (and this dates back to 1989) wines from the Saar have the extra ripeness that modern weather provides while retaining acidity in these warmer vintages.

I agree on Loire reds, German reds, southern England (maybe especially since what’s happening there might not have been possible 25 years ago), and Mosel (including tributaries).

Howard, I know what you’re saying about some vintages lacking acidity along the Mosel itself, but I think this is more about personal preference than quality. Plenty of relatively low acid vintages are aging very well. The underripe vintages of the past were true disasters for a lot of producers. Even if there is an argument for lower quality because of too little acidity for sweet styles in some vintages (I think there is to an extent), those wines are still much better than the wines from really bad vintages in past generations. The wines are more consistently good than they ever were, in my opinion.

Muscadet seems to be benefiting, but maybe that has more to do with which wines I taste than what’s really happening. Plus, I like the really ripe vintages there.

I completely agree that the wines are much better in lesser vintages today than they were in Germany when I first started drinking wine. No question. I still think the Saar has been a bigger beneficiary than the Mosel. When a vintage like 2018 comes along today, I first think of Saar wines.

Loire reds. Not sure I want change to the Loire whites, generally speaking.

We definitely seem to be having greater consistency in Loire Cab Franc vintages, through other factors, such as farming and winemaking approach, surely play some role.

Does anyone else think that we also seem to be having more good to very good+ vintages from Bordeaux than in recent past? I bought Bordeaux already this decade in 2010, 12, 14, 15 and 16, plus some select Pomerol in 2011. And reputedly 2018 is very good.

Howard, I definitely think you’re on the money with C-M reds. They used to be a good value for those willing to cellar them for a decade, but they still age well and IMO are definitely a notch or two better than they used to be.
I think that Loire reds are also improving, and it’s hard to argue with the new wines in England. Historically Chablis used to lose vintages regularly, and that seems like a fable now.

I would add Oregon to the list as well. While winemakers need to make adjustments to keep the wines from become over ripe or lacking in acidity, we simply don’t have challenging vintages nearly as often now as in the 80s and 90s. We still have excellent vintage variation(I have taken to saying that in the Willamette Valley, Mother Nature is capricious rather than catastrophic. 2019 is a perfect example of that.)

Definitely. Vineyard management, winemaking technologies and techniques, combined with customer preferences, have played a large role in what has changed in the bottle in the last several decades.

Anyway, regardless of the root causes, it’s an interesting question which wine regions are benefiting from the ability to make wines with more ripeness. Loire reds are a good example. I wonder if Champagne, and the increasing ability to make good Champagne with little or no dosage, is another example.

I’d love to see more good wines from Humboldt, though I fear that region will just continue to expand marijuana production instead.

Cru Beaujolais which has been on a tear since 2009 or so, might be a discussion point - climate vs wine making?

The winemakers and grape farmers of Humboldt appreciate all of the support and confidence the board has for our region.

As weather trends warmer, certain vineyards on the warm edge of the range for the varietal may be problematic.

The broader trend is that fewer years have harvest forced by season ending storms. The result is grapes are being picked at the winemaker’s choice rather than mother nature’s.

The big issue we continue to have is the availability of a trained labor force for vineyard work and harvest. I saw one vineyard let 30-40 tons of PN hang because it had been farmed badly, had issues, and This has to do with many factors including high housing costs due to limited development due to limited water. Plus, we now compete with legal weed farms rather than illegal ones for workers.

Labor and other infrastructure issues are the impediments, along with rugged terrain, to increased production of quality wine from Humboldt.

My POV.

BTW, there are few 75s and a 78 in the forecast for this week and no real rain yet. This is not normal weather for this time of year.