state wineries in England. Vineyards in Denmark. Grapes turning color weeks ahead of normal. Vine diseases collapsing in some areas – and exploding in others. These were just some of the more arresting findings presented by Spaniard Pancho Campo and American Greg Jones at a seminar they headlined in Sonoma earlier this summer.

One of the seminar’s biggest surprises, however, was not on the agenda anywhere - though it may be as portentous as anything presented during the two-day event. The connection between all these developments is climate change. Scientists concur that human activity is a significant contributor to global warming, which in turn drives local climatic variations. Now close observers of local wine climates have begun connecting the dots - and the picture that emerges is stark.

One of the broadest outlines concerns “phenology” – how plants interact with climate. In relatively warm winegrowing regions in the northern hemisphere, phenological events are moving backward in the calendar. These include budbreak (first emergence of new growth), flowering (opening of the buds into future fruit), veraison (color changes in grape skins) and harvest date (when humans deem the grapes ready for winemaking).

“All these events are occurring earlier, and closer together, in regions we have studied and for which we have strong data,” explained Campo, who heads the Wine Academy of Spain and was awaiting his Masters of Wine certification as the seminar unfolded.

Campo also looked ahead at what these changes could mean: “Imagine a world in which many wines have higher alcohol, lower acidity, less color, and less varietal aromas and complexity.” If this merely sounds like the ocean of Australian imports already flooding the U.S., imagine Napa, Sonoma, Bordeaux and Burgundy being pulled in as well, along with Rioja and Chianti.

Campo independently discovered the effects of climate change on wine in his native country. Spain is one of Europe’s most southern winegrowing regions – and therefore one of its warmest and most vulnerable to climate change. He soon found Greg Jones, PhD, associate professor of geography at Southern Oregon University. Jones’ father owns a winery in Oregon, and Jones is one of the few scientists in the U.S. to systematically gather wine-region climate data and analyze it.

“I never set out to work on climate change,” Jones said, as an opening to the first of his presentations. “I wanted to find the limits of climatic suitability for premium wine grapes, so the wine industry could have a more scientific approach for choosing its planting locations. What I found was that variations in climate are increasing dramatically almost everywhere. And it didn’t take long to figure out what was driving that.”

Broad trends, specific data

Throughout the two days, Jones and Campo delivered a series of powerful one-two punches: Campo laying out the big themes and Jones nailing them to reality with well-presented data. One such combination came early, when Campo went through a short version of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” argument for the existence of global warming. Campo then gave way to Jones, who dove into a riveting explanation of how the planet produces climate: a combination of heating and cooling cycles in the ocean and atmosphere.

These forces produce temperate weather when they counteract each other, and extreme weather when they reinforce each other. Apparently, it doesn’t take much global warming to create some truly monumental reinforcement. The kind that leads to Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005, or baseball-sized, window-shattering hail in Europe in May of 2007.

“The effect of climate change is most pronounced in warm areas, which include a high percentage of the world’s vineyards,” Jones explained. “There is more hot weather, and more record high temperatures, over longer periods, than in the past 50 years.” Hence the arrival of wineries in Scandinavia, increased plantings of heat-tolerant grapes in southern Europe, and vineyards marching up the mountainsides in countries around the world. “The biggest impact,” Jones warned, “may come not through the spikes in high temperatures but the steady rise in average low temperatures that we see around the world. Grapes that need cool nights for acid development aren’t getting the overnight relief they used to. This can have a direct effect on wine quality.”

“The wine industry will have to adapt,” said Campo, picking up the argument. “We already see evidence of this in two trends. The first is people planting the same grapes as today, but in cooler places.” Apparently this is going on not just in California coastal counties such as Sonoma, Mendocino and Santa Barbara, but in high-elevation inland areas in Argentina, Chile, France and Spain. The second major shift Campo predicted is that new varieties will go into existing vineyards. The red varieties he expects to see planted more widely include Petite Sirah, Petite Verdot, Lemberger and Graciano, along with Mourvedre. “The idea that Syrah will replace Pinot Noir in Burgundy is science fiction,” he deadpanned at one point. “If things get that bad, who will care about wine?” For whites, the list included Viognier, Vermentino, Verdelho, Verdicchio and Verdejo. Other likely changes would affect canopy management, clones, rootstocks, and irrigation practices.

Where were the wineries?

The event’s two headliners gave plenty of time to other presenters, including Kelly Lentz from Mendocino Wine Company and Kimberly Nicholas Cahill from Stanford University. Lentz explained how her employer, which owns Parducci Wine Cellars in Mendocino County and a number of other labels, is turning its viticulture strongly toward fertilizer-free practices that require less water and respiration by grapevines. The company also operates the largest winery solar system in the U.S.

The context for Lentz’ report was the wine industry’s overall carbon footprint, which Campo broke down piece by piece in one session. One of the most fascinating findings was that grape-growing actually reduces carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Fermentation accounts for just 3 percent of the wine industry’s CO₂ production. The big hitters turn out to be packaging and transportation, which account for the other 97 percent. “It is the barrels and bottles – their production and their transport from factory to winery to distribution – that are eating up so much energy and producing so much CO₂,” he concluded. “These are things we can change dramatically with new forms of packaging and by restoring traditions of local consumption.”

Cahill is currently finishing her doctorate while conducting research projects for the Napa Valley Vintners. She noted during her presentation that climate change “seems like a big, far-off issue to some people, and no big deal to other people who say every vintage is different already.” Both views, she showed, fly in the face of increasingly rigorous scientific research.

Yet both must be powerfully prevalent in the U.S., based on the attendance at the seminar. Despite months of advance notice and a convenient location, California’s wine industry almost completely ignored it.

“I’m amazed that there are not more wineries represented here,” said Roger Asleson, Director of Public Relations for Opus One, who attended the seminar both days. “Climate change presents so many vulnerabilities for an agriculture-based business, and they are magnified when you’re producing a luxury product that depends on agriculture.”

So why was Asleson there? “Opus One is partly owned by a family, the Rothschilds, that sees a winery as something that should last for 300 years,” he explained. “We are explicitly managing for future generations to come. If we ignore climate change, we are ignoring an essential part of our responsibility as the current managers of the business.” Robert Larsen, Director of Public Relations at Rodney Strong in Sonoma County, also attended the seminar. He said he was “at a loss” to explain why wineries were not there in force. “There was so much information presented that you can’t find anywhere else,” he noted.

Larsen also pointed out that even if wineries don’t feel their viticulture managers need the seminar, their marketing and public relations people still do. “In my job I talk to a lot of people, and the subject of climate change has started coming up. Professionally I would be remiss if I did not understand climate change well enough to speak knowledgeably about it in a wine context.”

Campo himself took a charitable view of the wineries’ collective no-show. “Our message about adapting to climate change is coming at a time of many other issues,” he said in an interview after the seminar. “Weak economies, tight credit, and high energy prices are enough to deal with for most wineries. People can’t handle another challenge right now.”

Yet Campo and Jones came to the heart of California wine country this summer, and next spring Campo plans a 14-city world tour and other major events, at least one of which is expected to include Gore himself. “Right now the industry is not paying much attention,” Campo admits. “But when people are ready, they will find that we are already in their country, talking about issues specific to their wine, their grapes and their vineyards. They will adapt, because they must. It is only a matter of time now.”

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Photos by Thom Elkjer