Réchauffement climatique : à quoi ressembleront les vins du futur ?
Here is an interesting video that highlights an issue which affects us:
The impact of global warming on the French vineyards
This video raises the consequences of global warming on wine industry:
- Global warming requires to change the “Vineyard Calendar” which had been steady since so much time so far.
- The physiological* and phenolic* maturities are not longer in coordination. (sugar content* vs ripeness of the berries*)
- The threat of a qualitative decline for the French’s wine in the short term and in the long term few wine areas could dissapear or at least lose their traditional grape varieties.
The solutions introduced in this video, in our view, are not appropriate for this major problem for the following reasons:
- Winemakers try to rise their vine trunk up or cool their grapes before starting the vinification. These solutions can be effective in the short term for some vineyards but do not represent a real solution for the future if the temperature keep rising at this pace.
- The genetic manipulation of grapes is of course against our principles of green and organic viticulture for wine. This solution, which proposes to deal with the problem indirectly by changing varieties rather than an real improvement in our environmental behaviour is far from organic orientation. Plus we have not doubts that organic viticulture will become mandatory for all French vineyards in the near future.
- Moving the vineyards up north: this idea is simply inconceivable and would break our reputation built since so many years of hard work. The rich history of each wine area is of course produce their own grapes terroirs. The champagne, like the name says, is produced in Champagne, not in the south of England, Burgundy is known for its Pinot noir, not its production of Syrah / Grenache, unique to southern France. Again this solution push the climate issue away to future generations
Our belief is that we must now take that issue very seriously if we want to preserve the postive image of French wine worldwide.
The concrete and real solutions over the long term go through investment in R & D for:
- Decline in everything we do, including in agriculture, our “carbon” pollution through responsible behaviours in the long term.
- Encourage the new companies specialised in renewable energy in order to launch a process which involves Green Energy and viticulture to keep our reputation, our land, our production, our grapes and a greener planet for future generations .