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As wine enthusiasts, we have the luxury of enjoying all things vino without necessarily knowing what it takes to go from vine to bottle. These days, ask any winemaker and they may tell you that it starts with having the best climate for wine grapes.
“All the grapes are depending on Mother Nature and sometimes the weather is mother,” shares Dennis McCarter, owner of McCarter Cellars. The Sonoma County-based winemaker knows how climate can make or break a harvest, determining all of the notes that excite our taste buds.
Winemaking is about climate, just as much as it is about science, the vines and soil and with the impact of climate change showing up in vineyards year after year, having the best climate for wine grapes grown in regions around the world can be challenging.
Factors That Work Against Creating the Best Climate for Wine Grapes
For winemakers like McCarter, the focus is on making the best wine possible, which requires knowing not only your soil and your vines but also the weather. As growing seasons become shorter, dryer, hotter and rains become more unpredictable, what was once considered the best climate for wine grapes specifically grown on vineyards may turn out not to be ideal. McCarter says it becomes “trying to balance the imbalance.”
He adds that as a result of making wine, winemakers learn about climate and how it will or will not affect their harvest yield. He points to these factors that they have to now consider as the climate crisis continues to change the wine industry.
1. Droughts – As the earth continues to heat up and weather patterns continue to change, wine grapes will continue to respond positively and negatively. There is no doubt that excessive heat and lack of water cause stress on the yield, which impacts acidity levels and flavor notes. Droughts definitely don’t make the best climate for wine grapes, but winemakers are learning to adapt more and more through sustainable practices as droughts become more frequent to ensure the fruit ripens at the right time according to the varietal.
2. Excessive Rains – Too much rain can be just as detrimental as not enough, causing more harm to the fruit and the soil such as erosion and nutrient loss. This can often times damage grapes for that upcoming harvest season which is never a good thing.
3. Soil – Soil health is critical to the fruit’s health and yield. The best climate for wine grapes helps to nurture the soil, be it clay, sandy, silt, or loam, and is very much a part of the flavor characteristics that develop in the wine. Healthy soils produce excellent wines, while unhealthy soils that suffer from erosion and nutrient loss may leave you looking forward to starting over again the following year, with the quality of the grapes being less than desirable.
4. Fires – From California to Canada and France, sadly we are seeing more and more fires as a result of climate change and when they hit the vineyard, the losses are just as devastating. From not knowing what the climate will be year after year, to learning how to navigate through droughts and subsequently fires can be a lot for vineyard owners and winemakers to add to their business plates. But when informed and involved in the process, aided by others and again with sustainable practices, hopefully, damages can be mitigated as much as possible.
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Sustainability Helps to Lead the Way
All this being said, winemakers are certainly no strangers, especially in California, to adapting sustainable practices that put the fruit and land first when it comes to doing what they can to support the best climate for wine grapes.
“You have to be outside the box if you want to adapt,” says McCarter. Examples he notes include planting different vines that adapt to the climate being experienced, embracing hybrid grapes that can grow in various climates and dry farming, which is noted as being very environmentally responsible.
For McCarter, who sources his fruit and juice that turn into his award-winning pinot noir wines and gewürztraminer (he is in the process of producing his first zinfandel), adapting and working with sustainable vineyards is important. And like other winemakers, the more he continues to learn and put into practice to control what he can, the next part is just letting Mother Nature do the rest.
