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Feature Article
At the end of the 21st century, will Napa Valley growers have to resort to mixed agriculture with date palms and vines sharing the same land?
Global Warming Turns Up the Heat in Napa Valley Vineyards
Alan Goldfarb speaks with long time Napa grape grower, Laurie Wood, about the negative effects of global warming on the wine industry and specifically the Napa Valley. To which, Wood warns “Unless we get off our yin yang and get going, it may be too late already.”
by
Alan Goldfarb
August 9, 2006
At 86 years old, Laurie Wood has been growing grapes in the Napa Valley perhaps longer than any living human being. As evidence of how long -- and intimately -- he’s been involved in the valley’s grape growing industry, Wood is also known around these parts as a man who could find water under the most arid of deserts. In his other profession as a water douser, Wood has come to know just about every piece of earth in the Napa Valley.
Still doing it at the tumultuous beginning of a new millennium, Wood is not sure anyone else in the Napa Valley will be doing it when the century comes to a close.
That’s because, if scientific evidence comes to fruition, the Napa Valley, as well as appellations in Sonoma and Santa Barbara counties as we know them, could be changed as almost no one can possibly imagine. Laurie Wood might be glad he won’t live to witness it.
“I’m alarmed,” Wood says when asked about global warming and how it might apply to the grape growing industry, which led Wood to warn in his inimitable fashion, “Unless we get off our yin yang and get going, it may be too late already.”
In a front page article July 11 in the San Francisco Chronicle, Noah Diffenbaugh, an assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue University, whose group has issued a study on the matter cautioned that Napa, Sonoma, and Santa Barbara counties' grape growing industries at the end of the century would be eliminated. Diffenbaugh concluded, “One big lesson is that the daily temperature changes are important,” and not just the change in average temperature.
Pat Garvey, another longtime Napa Valley grape grower, can attest to the study’s findings.
“In the last 25 years we’ve never turned on the sprinklers during the summer -- now we’ll be turning on the sprinklers,” says Garvey, whose Flora Springs company has vineyards in Pope Valley, Rutherford, Oakville, Carneros, and St. Helena. “We’ve had four and six days in the high 90s and low 100s. I don’t remember back-to-back-to-back days being this hot. I don’t know if it supports global warming (theories), but things are changing.”
Garvey admits that he hasn’t read enough about the subject and says, “I don’t know what to attribute it to. (But) the last few years, we used to get on average 4-to-5 three-day sets with temperatures in the high 90s, low 100s. And then there was always a cooling affect. You could count on that. But in the past five years, we’ve had 5,6,8 (three-day sets).”
Wood has witnessed sprinkler systems turned on recently in valley vineyards and he thinks, “Some people are hitting the panic button.” Nonetheless he concludes, “It’s a challenge that we have to act on now. … It’s a good idea to call a meeting and talk about what we should be doing.”
What can be done?
In the modern era, at least in the post-phylloxera era, viticulturists have been employing what seems like never-ending regimens to change rootstocks, clones, and irrigation practices. What seemed like a good idea in the last 10 years to go from what was once called “California sprawl,” or untrained leaf canopies, has now given way to the vertical shoot system of keeping the leaf cover to a minimum, which in turn allows more sunlight to penetrate the grapes.
Suddenly, the forward thinking -- with temperatures warming up -- is that perhaps somewhere in between may be an answer.
Dr. Richard Nagaoka, who bills himself as “The Grape Doctor,” and a “vineyard architect,” has a few thoughts about what action might be taken to try and stave off the effects of global warming.
“I recognize it as a longtime, eventual possibility (the loss of vineyard land), and we’re on a slippery slope,” says Nagaoka, who finds undeveloped land for his clients. “There are some strategies such as bio-diesels and the use of reducing irrigation requirements. Cover crops have wonderful erosion qualities, (but they) consume more water. Do we need to use irrigation?”
Nagaoka was very impressed with Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which he says alluded to deserts changing. “This will mean, if our rainfall changes, we won’t have enough reservoirs. Napa is at risk,” Nagaoka beleives. “We’ll get more drought-like conditions. And will we have water reserves?”
Wood said he couldn’t imagine the Napa Valley no longer being a wine grape growing region, so he has some other thoughts. “We have to scratch our heads and get innovative,” is the way he puts it. Toward that end, he recommends putting date palm trees down vineyard rows to get shade protection. “Date palms love the heat.”
Or he suggests, perhaps reflecting the heat off the ground with some innovative means. In a lesson on how not to do it in the age of global warming, Wood and longtime Napa Valley resident Barney Rhodes once tried to get more heat into the ground.
“We sprayed lamp-black after discing the ground,” he explains. He said the method actually picked up 4-5 degrees that way, and “we once laid down black plastic, but that was a disaster.”
Davie Piña’s family makes wine and has been in the vineyard management business all over the valley “ever since before I could drive a car and when I drove a tractor.”
He believes in the phenomenon of global warming but is unsure of “What the outcomes are going to be … Whether we’re going to be able to grow grapes” is not the question. We know “we can grow grapes in the desert and next to the ocean – the issue is quality.”
In the eventuality that the Napa Valley will drastically change by the end of the century, quality of grapes, not the disappearance of them, might be the issue.
Rich Nagaoka thinks that the valley floor might fare better because of its water-retention possibilities but he asks, "Will our mountain or hillside vineyards be able to survive?
“In 1975-77 (draught years) growers responded by sacrificing crops and thereby keeping the vines alive. These are things we’ll become more aware of.
“If temperatures shift, we’ll have to plant more warm weather varieties. … Lodi Zins seem like very good wines to me. We’ll find varieties that do better. We’ll do less vertical shoot (systems) and create trellises to react some change. But will that be enough influence? Will the acids change?"
Piña is sanguine about the issue.
“What ever issues come up, we’ll try to alleviate,” he predicts. I think we can stay on top of it.”
But now’s the time, according to Laurie Wood, to get your yin yangs going.
~ Alan Goldfarb, Napa Regional Correspondent
To comment on Alan Goldfarb's writings and thoughts, contact him at a.goldfarb@appellationamerica.com
Still doing it at the tumultuous beginning of a new millennium, Wood is not sure anyone else in the Napa Valley will be doing it when the century comes to a close.
That’s because, if scientific evidence comes to fruition, the Napa Valley, as well as appellations in Sonoma and Santa Barbara counties as we know them, could be changed as almost no one can possibly imagine. Laurie Wood might be glad he won’t live to witness it.
“I’m alarmed,” Wood says when asked about global warming and how it might apply to the grape growing industry, which led Wood to warn in his inimitable fashion, “Unless we get off our yin yang and get going, it may be too late already.”
In a front page article July 11 in the San Francisco Chronicle, Noah Diffenbaugh, an assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue University, whose group has issued a study on the matter cautioned that Napa, Sonoma, and Santa Barbara counties' grape growing industries at the end of the century would be eliminated. Diffenbaugh concluded, “One big lesson is that the daily temperature changes are important,” and not just the change in average temperature.
Pat Garvey, another longtime Napa Valley grape grower, can attest to the study’s findings.
“In the last 25 years we’ve never turned on the sprinklers during the summer -- now we’ll be turning on the sprinklers,” says Garvey, whose Flora Springs company has vineyards in Pope Valley, Rutherford, Oakville, Carneros, and St. Helena. “We’ve had four and six days in the high 90s and low 100s. I don’t remember back-to-back-to-back days being this hot. I don’t know if it supports global warming (theories), but things are changing.”
Garvey admits that he hasn’t read enough about the subject and says, “I don’t know what to attribute it to. (But) the last few years, we used to get on average 4-to-5 three-day sets with temperatures in the high 90s, low 100s. And then there was always a cooling affect. You could count on that. But in the past five years, we’ve had 5,6,8 (three-day sets).”
Wood has witnessed sprinkler systems turned on recently in valley vineyards and he thinks, “Some people are hitting the panic button.” Nonetheless he concludes, “It’s a challenge that we have to act on now. … It’s a good idea to call a meeting and talk about what we should be doing.”
What can be done?
In the modern era, at least in the post-phylloxera era, viticulturists have been employing what seems like never-ending regimens to change rootstocks, clones, and irrigation practices. What seemed like a good idea in the last 10 years to go from what was once called “California sprawl,” or untrained leaf canopies, has now given way to the vertical shoot system of keeping the leaf cover to a minimum, which in turn allows more sunlight to penetrate the grapes.
Suddenly, the forward thinking -- with temperatures warming up -- is that perhaps somewhere in between may be an answer.
Dr. Richard Nagaoka, who bills himself as “The Grape Doctor,” and a “vineyard architect,” has a few thoughts about what action might be taken to try and stave off the effects of global warming.
“I recognize it as a longtime, eventual possibility (the loss of vineyard land), and we’re on a slippery slope,” says Nagaoka, who finds undeveloped land for his clients. “There are some strategies such as bio-diesels and the use of reducing irrigation requirements. Cover crops have wonderful erosion qualities, (but they) consume more water. Do we need to use irrigation?”
Nagaoka was very impressed with Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which he says alluded to deserts changing. “This will mean, if our rainfall changes, we won’t have enough reservoirs. Napa is at risk,” Nagaoka beleives. “We’ll get more drought-like conditions. And will we have water reserves?”
Wood said he couldn’t imagine the Napa Valley no longer being a wine grape growing region, so he has some other thoughts. “We have to scratch our heads and get innovative,” is the way he puts it. Toward that end, he recommends putting date palm trees down vineyard rows to get shade protection. “Date palms love the heat.”
Or he suggests, perhaps reflecting the heat off the ground with some innovative means. In a lesson on how not to do it in the age of global warming, Wood and longtime Napa Valley resident Barney Rhodes once tried to get more heat into the ground.
“We sprayed lamp-black after discing the ground,” he explains. He said the method actually picked up 4-5 degrees that way, and “we once laid down black plastic, but that was a disaster.”
Davie Piña’s family makes wine and has been in the vineyard management business all over the valley “ever since before I could drive a car and when I drove a tractor.”
He believes in the phenomenon of global warming but is unsure of “What the outcomes are going to be … Whether we’re going to be able to grow grapes” is not the question. We know “we can grow grapes in the desert and next to the ocean – the issue is quality.”
In the eventuality that the Napa Valley will drastically change by the end of the century, quality of grapes, not the disappearance of them, might be the issue.
Rich Nagaoka thinks that the valley floor might fare better because of its water-retention possibilities but he asks, "Will our mountain or hillside vineyards be able to survive?
“In 1975-77 (draught years) growers responded by sacrificing crops and thereby keeping the vines alive. These are things we’ll become more aware of.
“If temperatures shift, we’ll have to plant more warm weather varieties. … Lodi Zins seem like very good wines to me. We’ll find varieties that do better. We’ll do less vertical shoot (systems) and create trellises to react some change. But will that be enough influence? Will the acids change?"
Piña is sanguine about the issue.
“What ever issues come up, we’ll try to alleviate,” he predicts. I think we can stay on top of it.”
But now’s the time, according to Laurie Wood, to get your yin yangs going.
~ Alan Goldfarb, Napa Regional Correspondent
To comment on Alan Goldfarb's writings and thoughts, contact him at a.goldfarb@appellationamerica.com
