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Yountville, CA

Temperature: 68°F
Humidity: 49.1%
Wind: S at 15 mph
Clouds: Clear Skies
Sunrise: 6:02 am GMT-8
Sunset: 8:10 pm GMT-8
Updated: 1:54 pm GMT-8

July 2007
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Archive for July, 2007

Q: How to Transition from Whites to Reds?

July 30, 2007 in Answers. 0 Comments

Question from Jodie: I enjoy white wine or White Zinfandel but would like to start drinking red wine because I have heard that it is good for you to have a glass a day. I have tried a merlot and a cabernet but they are too strong for me. Could you recommend something more ‘gentle’ or ‘mellow’ for me to try?

Reply: Hi, Jodie! Thank you for writing, and congratulations on wanting to add more variety to your wine repertoire! You have many options.

The easiest thing to do is go to a wine shop with a knowledgeable staff and tell them exactly what you’ve told me. They’ll know their inventory and should be able to help you pick out some wines that you’ll like.

Otherwise, here are some wines that are usually lighter than the Cabernet and Merlot:

Pinot Noir is a great choice (ours is sold out, unfortunately). It’s nearly always very soft and approachable and goes well with a wide variety of foods.

Wines called “Beaujolais” are French wines made of the Gamay grape, which produces a light, fruity red wine that’s very low in astringency. The California versions of Beaujolais are called Gamay or Gamay Beaujolais. It’s not particularly popular right now, but you can find it.

You might try asking for a light-bodied red Zinfandel. Zin is made in many styles and you probably won’t enjoy the massive, high-alcohol, so-called “fruit-bombs” that are popular right now, but a light-bodied Zin will be big on fruit and low in tannin (astringency). From Italy, Valpolicella and Bardolino are light-bodied reds that go down easy.

The risk with the European wines is that you may not care for them if you’re not accustomed to wines that are somewhat tart. If you like dry, crisp whites like Sauvignon Blanc, it will probably work out OK, but if you prefer the sweetness of the White Zin, these wines might make you pucker. Ask for warm vintages from Europe like 2003 and 2005. Alternatively, many of the Aussie reds, like the Shiraz blends, have more body but are often slightly sweet or give the impression of sweetness.

For the lightest of the light, come November, look for the Beaujolais Nouveau (there are also a few California versions, often called Gamay Nouveau). It’s released the 3rd Thursday of each November and is one of the few reds that takes a chill well. It sells quickly, so you probably won’t be able to find it this time of year.

You’ll enjoy these wines more if you drink them with food, at least at first. Some people sip reds on their own, but generally they’re made to go with food. As you try more and more of them, I’ll bet you’ll find yourself developing a taste for something a little bigger after awhile. You’ll still appreciate the whites and delicate reds, but you’ll enjoy the big reds too. It’s the progression most all of us go through.

I hope you’ll find time to come to our Wine Basics Class one of these days. It sounds like you’re ready to explore! You might enjoy this episode from our podcast or our article on tasting techniques.

I hope this is helpful. Thanks, again, for writing and enjoy the wine!
Cheers! Nancy

Whither Hangtime?

July 28, 2007 in Observations and Winemaking. 3 Comments

Where to start on this issue? And how to know where it’s going? This has been brewing for quite some time but, in the last 4-6 weeks, the drum-beat has gotten so loud that it’s making my head hurt! Is this truly the beginning of a significant pendulum swing or is this just a lot of people (mainly bloggers) talking?

I mention the bloggers because, like Jeff at Good Grape, I wonder how much influence blogs have. I took a quick look at the Winery Website Report to get an idea of how many wineries post a blog and, I must say, Goosecross is part of a very elite group. No doubt they’ve missed a few, but they reported that 51 wineries in their global database have a blog, a few in California, and the ones from Napa Valley can be counted on one hand with a finger or two missing. High profile, influential wineries are conspicuously absent from the list. If they don’t write them do they read them???

But I digress… Anyway, here’s a recap of the main gripes:

1. High alcohol wines are too overbearing and don’t go with food. I was lucky enough to ask Darrell Corti directly about his decision to stop carrying wines over 14.5% in a podcast interview (episode to be released 8/21) and he said he doesn’t consider them table wines. They’re too big for the food and they’re too tiring.

2. High alcohol wines all begin to taste the same and the sense of “terroir” is lost.

3. They’re too sweet.

And, here are the main reasons cited for the high alcohol (for a little background read previous post):

1. Longer hangtime: Winemakers are waiting longer to harvest in order to produce richer, rounder, extremely flavorful wines, AKA “fruitbombs”, and to avoid “green”, tannic character.

2. “Super yeasts”: Yeasts have been “cleaned up” over the last few decades and are more efficient converters of sugar to alcohol.

3. Healthier vines: The replanting during the phylloxera years has given us younger, healthier vines that are also more effective at converting sunlight to sugar.

4. Vertical shoot positioning (VSP): The above combined with the maximized sunlight exposure the vines get with VSP bumps up the sugar.

5. Powerful wine critics: This can’t really be separated from the first point. Winemakers go with extended hangtime because they’re more likely to be rewarded with high ratings by a handful of extremely influential wine critics.

Some blame global warming, but that seems a bit premature. See previous post for more on that.

So, with all of those factors conspiring together is a pendulum swing back toward lower alcohols a possibility, assuming that’s a good idea? Many see these factors as overwhelming, especially in a warm climate like Napa Valley, but Eric Asimov believes big, high-alcohol wines are a choice and I tend to agree. “…to suggest that it’s necessary in California rather than a stylistic decision on the part of the winemaker is plain wrong.”

I know I’ve cited this study ad nauseum (scroll down to get to the hangtime section), but it’s pertinent to this issue of the necessity of high sugars/alcohols to get full fruit maturity. In this study Ed Weber, the Napa County viticulture advisor for the University of California Cooperative Extension, noted that metabolized sugar increases seemed to stop at about 25-26 degrees brix and after that the sugar accumulation was due to simple dehydration. He also observed that a vineyard that tended to make vegetal wine at low sugars still made greenish wine at 26 degrees brix.

red grape clusters in bin

And, guess what? All those vines that we replanted in the 90s are getting older as we speak.

We don’t have to use “super yeasts”, or any yeast at all, if we decide it’s not smart.

VSP is great, but we can manage the vines in whatever manner we decide is the most advantageous - admittedly these changes would be slow, barring some kind of catastrophe. Bite your tongue!!! :-0

So how to predict the future? That’s the hard part. There’s this nebulous feeling that the pendulum just might be ready to swing back. Is it truly change that’s in the air? Or is it all just a bunch of hot air in the blogosphere?

“High alcohol wines have had their day.” says a grocery chain wine specialist. But, as Bob Pepi has said repeatedly, it’s possible to make balanced wine that’s 14.5% and I can’t argue with the countless delicious examples I’ve tasted to back his theory. But still… And what about those wines that are over 15%? Who knows? Hang on… ;-)

Q: Where Did California Wine Grapes Come From?

July 26, 2007 in Answers. 0 Comments

Question from Quincy: We are having a debate about the origin of California wine. We hope you can solve it. Where do California wines originate from? Are there any grapes native to California? I was told that California grapes repopulated the French wine country when the grapes were wiped out about 30 years ago. Did the grapes originally come from France, or were there native grapes that made California notable?

Reply: Thanks for writing! You’ve asked a complicated question, so I suggest that you get yourself a glass of wine and get comfy before you read this!

The species of grapes that are used to make wine in virtually every wine-producing country are of European, or actually Eurasian, origin, called vitis vinifera. Vitis vinifera is thought to be native to the area south of the Black Sea, in what is now Georgia and Armenia, and eventually traveled west. Of course Europe takes the credit for making these varieties famous. The first wine grapes in California came from Spain, via Mexico, and we have the Spanish missionaries to thank for establishing our industry first in southern California, and then bringing it north.

vitis vinifera

Wild, native California grapes are considered unsuitable for wine, but not other native American varieties. Wine is made of native American varieties such as Concord or Muscadine, but it claims a very small part of the market. American and European grape varieties are of the same genus, but not the same species, so they’re different in appearance, growing habits and, most importantly, flavor. Most of us find the flavors of the American varieties too strong. We seem to prefer the European varieties that have made wine for centuries.

The confusion with American varieties in Europe was created in the 19th century. As European varieties made their way here, American cuttings were also taken to Europe. Some of the American cuttings were infested with a small, aphid-like root pest called phylloxera, to which they are resistant. The French vineyards had never been exposed to phylloxera before and were devastated by it (this was in the 1860s). It took them a long time to identify the problem and then figure out what to do about it. They tried flooding the vineyards; they tried the chemicals that were available at the time. Finally, it was suggested that the non-resistant French variety be grafted on to resistant American stock and it worked! Ever since then the European varieties have been grafted.

Phylloxera proved to be a jet-setter, attacking most of the rest of Europe and other wine-producing regions around the globe including California and so the vast majority of us have to graft. There are some parts of South America and Australia that appear to be phylloxera-free, but most growers consider it prudent to graft European varieties onto American rootstock. These days, we select the hybrid not only for its phylloxera resistance, but also for other attributes such as drought resistance, low vigor, high vigor, etc.

phylloxera

In the late 1980s there was a recurrence of phylloxera here in California. Some blame a rootstock hybrid called AxR1, a French/American hybrid (the French parent being the weak link). Many believe that phylloxera mutated in such a way that rootstock that was resistant isn’t any longer and a “biotype B” phylloxera was identified (there are many biotypes of phylloxera). According to Jancis Robinson, “the AxR1 rootstock was found not to be affected by phylloxera found in New Zealand, but it was affected by German phylloxera.” In any case, here in California, if the vineyard was on AxR1 it was a question of when, not if, it would succumb and a great deal of replanting was necessary.

Now, just to cover all the bases (I hope!), there’s one grape, Zinfandel, that’s often called the “California grape.” That’s because we couldn’t locate its European parent or find the wine produced in Europe. In recent years a great deal of research was done on the subject and DNA fingerprinting has traced Zinfandel and its Italian twin, Primitivo, back to Croatia. Zinfandel doesn’t have the appearance or growing habits of a native American variety, so it wasn’t surprising to find that it came from Europe. But, we still think of it as very much a California wine!

old vine zin

I’m afraid this may have been a 2-glass reply, but I hope it was helpful to you.

Cheers! Nancy

Aren’t They Purty?

July 24, 2007 in Vintage Update. 0 Comments

They’re showing their true colors. We saw the first tiny blush of color in our Cabernet a little over a week ago, and now they’re going full-tilt toward a purple so deep we’ll call it black. It’s a wonder! And they’re so purty…

wine grape veraison

The vines are sending a direct message to our Winemaker, Geoff Gorsuch. They’re saying that they’re headed for the barn. They’re saying in no uncertain terms that their energy has shifted from shoot development into fruit ripening and to pay attention, y’all!

The greenest, firmest grapes read just below 6 degrees brix (brix translates roughly to percentage of sugar) and aren’t much fun to taste at all - kind of like an extremely sour blade of grass. The darkest, softest are at about 15 degrees (when you buy grapes at the grocery store, they’re usually between 15 and 20% sugar). Not too tart, but not very flavorful yet, either.

grape cluster

So, it’s happening! Soon, it will be time for Geoff to to start “sampling” the vineyard to check the sugar, acid and pH. Once he sees an average sugar of about 20%, he’ll begin tasting for flavor maturity, knowing that he’ll end up picking at somewhere between 22 and 26 or 27%, a very big window. Within those parameters, flavor is the over-riding factor.

winemaker sampling Brix

If the weather cooperates, the flavors will be right where he wants them just as the sugar, acid and pH fall into place. That’s called a good year.

Every region has its gripes, and ours is usually heat. If we have a lot of hot weather, the sugars race ahead of the flavor maturity, making Geoff’s harvest decision more difficult. It’s far from the worst thing that can happen, but it’s something to be reckoned with. Our European counterparts are usually more concerned that the weather won’t be warm enough to get enough sugar before the rains come. For instance, they’re having a dickens of a time with rain in Bordeaux the last few weeks and hail in the Rhone and Alsace last month, something that’s almost unheard of this time of year in sunny Napa Valley. So, we all meet in the middle.

Anyway, we have to enjoy these beautiful, blushing grapes for the few days they’re in this lovely stage of “veraison” because before you know it, it will be time to go get’em! Cheers!

8 Hours On Olive Oil…

July 23, 2007 in Food & Wine. 2 Comments

My Mom laughed when I told her I was going to an all-day olive oil symposium.
At that moment I didn’t notice because I was too busy chirping on and on about how the speakers would include experts from the University of Florence, Milan, our own University of California at Davis, Darrell Corti, a crack group of experts. But after we hung up, I realized that if you step back a bit it might strike the average person, who’s not in the food industry, as pretty-darned funny that someone would want to listen to technical people talk non-stop about olive oil for a whole day. Perhaps I should think about getting a life??? Actually, the symposium was 2 days, but I just went to the second day, so I guess I have half a life.

Anyway, this was all thanks to our good friend Diane DeFillipi of Let’s Go Cook Italian and her olive-oil maestro Paolo Pasquali of Villa Campestri in Tuscany.

I’ve been to enough seminars on wine that the agenda felt like home, except it was about olives and oil instead of grapes and wine. Folks of various expertise discussing irrigation, varieties, marketing, health benefits… But since olive oil and wine have differences in addition to similarities, most of this was new information and it seems that the biggest consumer issues were those of finding ways to regulate quality and concerns about lack of consumer understanding, even among professional consumers such as chefs.

Professional Olive Oil Sampling

Perceived areas of confusion:

1. Since most of the oils we use have little or no flavor, we’ve expected olive oil to be bland too. If it’s any good, it isn’t. It tends to be grassy and peppery in flavor and quite often bitter. Darrell Corti referred to “3-cough” oil as being a desirable trait (when you taste a little of the oil by itself, the pungency makes you cough). And when it came time for tasting, by golly, I coughed! He pointed out, of course, that when you put it on your salad or pasta it’s diluted by other flavors and contributes flavor of its own to the mix rather than making you cough. That’s a relief!

2. All the different names are very confusing (pure, virgin, extra virgin, light). True. Cut to the chase: always buy extra virgin and hope that’s what it really is. Inexpensive extra-virgin olive oil is suspect, because good olive oil is expensive to produce. Unscrupulous producers may cut the olive oil with cheaper oils (misrepresentation was a topic that also came up that day). By the way, “light” olive oil isn’t lower in calories. It’s just been processed to be bland.

3. There are different styles of extra-virgin olive oil ranging from light fruity intensity to intensely fruity and pungent. Typically, the greener the color, the greater the intensity. Much like wine, mild oil is best with subtle foods like butter lettuce and the pungent oil is a great flavor addition to finish your pasta dish or drizzled over flavorful, ripe tomatoes (Mmmmm… Caprese salad - bring it on!)

4. We don’t realize it doesn’t keep forever. We should use it up within about a month’s time or move it to a smaller container to eliminate the head space to keep it longer. Just like wine, air is the enemy once the bottle is open.

5. We don’t know how to store it. Bill Briwa of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) Greystone campus in Napa Valley told an amusing story about his days as a student at the CIA in Hyde Park, and how little was and is, even now, not understood by professional chefs. The instructor/chefs kept large cans of olive oil sitting by the hot stove for months on end. Must have been pretty yucky stuff, but they didn’t know any better. Just like wine, the olive oil is sensitive to heat and light, so we should keep it in our wine storage area or at least a cool closet or cupboard.

A few hours were dedicated to why olive oil - really extra-virgin olive oil - is so good for us. This was a very technical discussion - lots of charts, graphs and molecules - directly following lunch. But my chemistry-challenged, siesta-inclined pea brain managed to absorb a little something. The anti-oxidant phenols in extra-virgin olive oil may be “heart smart” and also may inhibit the initiation and progress of cancer. Sound familiar?

Claudio Peri, of the University of Milan, has spear-headed the founding of an organization called TREE (3 E’s: Ethics, Excellence and Effectiveness) to guarantee the quality of the olive oil to the consumer, sort of like an international appellation controlee system for olive oil. Members will have to adhere to certain standards. This organization is so new that I can’t locate their website, and it’s much too soon to know how beneficial this will be, but it’s always great to have folks trying to raise standards and help us to know what we’re buying.

We capped off our day with a beautiful, multi-course dinner and each course, even the dessert, was made with extra-virgin olive oil. Yummmm… Diane and I have both been to plenty of wine-centric, “winemaker dinners”, in our time, that detail the virtues of the wine served with each course. Of course, there’s never any mention of the olive oil used in preparing the various courses. Well, we were bemused to find that the shoe was on the other foot here. This was an “Extra Virgin Olive Oil Menu” and the origin, brand and style of each olive oil featured was placed prominently on our menus. But, the menu made no mention of the delicious wines served with each course. Nada. Ask the server to show you the label or remain ignorant. It was a great reminder that there’s a context for everything and in this case, for once, wine wasn’t the center of the universe. Can that be possible????

olive oil bottle with olives

So, I very gratefully feel a smidgen more knowledgeable about the world of olive oil than I did before and, of course, when you get down to basics it’s like great cuisine and wine. The quality is as good as the ingredients that make it, provided you don’t make a mess of it during production. Salute!

He “Hates Wine and Food Pairing”?

July 11, 2007 in Food & Wine. 0 Comments

Well, it’s a fun read, as always with St. Vini, but I don’t entirely agree with this post or think he’s helping anyone this time. I’m OK with his big picture: “Don’t get hung up on these silly notions of wines and food being required to go perfectly together. Open a bottle of something tasty and drink up!” Agreed. Wine is hard enough already and the last thing we want to do is imply that there’s a wrong way to do things. It just puts people off. And optimum pairing is just as personal as food preferences… but it should be fun and easy. For example, Colleen’s Kitchen offers many recipes and wine pairings that are easy to make and tough to beat.

But, let’s not throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water. There’s quite a distance between just paying attention and getting “hung up” on the wine and food combination. It’s not hard to create a good, or even wonderful, pairing so why not go for it? How could someone like St. Vini, with all he knows and loves about wine, really believe all of what he’s saying in his heart? Gosh, do you think he might be the first-ever blogger to go a little overboard to make a point??

Partial rebuttal:

1. No one should be looking around to see if someone else disapproves of his pairing choice. That’s just pathetic.
2. If people are so concerned about getting the food and wine pairing “correct” that they’re paralyzed into ordering beer (lager or stout?), then we’ve got a problem, but really. Are there grown-ups that insecure? Get thee to a therapist! Or just order the house white!
3. Some combinations are yucky (of course, yucky is in the eye - or palate - of the beholder). Cheese can be kinda tricky.
4. As many responded, if you’re going to put some effort into the meal preparation like getting fresh herbs from the Farmer’s Market or making your sauce from scratch, why is it so hard to put a little thought into your choice of wine? It’s part of the meal, after all.

I wonder what St. Vini would think about the Tim Hanni theory: “if the wine you really want to drink with your cottage cheese, sweet-and-sour shrimp, asparagus, Thai food, pasta, or anything else tastes bitter, less fruity and generally too strong with your meal, put a touch of salt and little squeeze of lemon on the food. The food will taste better to you and the wine will become smoother and more pleasant.” I’ve tried it and, much to my surprise, it seems to work, but it also seems geared towards solving problems rather than increasing pleasure. I don’t know everything there is to know about his approach, but it doesn’t seem to encompass the quest for those magical food and wine combinations we come across from time to time. I’m all for solving problems but, given a choice, I’ll always shoot for pleasure.

Sushi and Sauvignon Blanc

So much of it is common sense. Most wines and foods taste pretty good together, and the best combinations are personal. And, a so-so combination is usually preferable to no wine at all - uh, oh - am I in trouble here??

Some easy-to-remember alternative pairing theories:

1. Match weight for weight: a hillside Cab will probably out-shout a poached filet of sole.
2. It’s not so much the choice of protein; it’s what you did to it: Did you poach it, roast it or grill it? Those techniques create progressively deeper flavors and may call for increasingly bigger wines.
3. Is there a sauce? Same story as #2: it’s what you did to it. Is it a rich reduction or a light, citrus-based sauce? You could go for a complement: butter sauce with buttery Chardonnay; or create a contrast: the richness of the butter sauce is cut by a crisp Sauvignon Blanc.
4. Try putting some of the wine in the sauce to seal the match.
5. Look for a complement: earthy Pinot or Merlot with wild mushroom risotto.
6. Or go for a fun contrast: hot, spicy food with a cool, crisp Riesling, Gewurztraminer or un-oaked Chenin Blanc.
7. Acid warning: if the food is tart, the wine should be at least as high in acid or it will seem flat.
8. Hot and spicy warning: spicy foods bring out bitterness and astringency in wine, so avoid the big tannic reds and go for a fruity, low tannin red or a light, fruity white.

Natalie MacLean was kind enough to forward this pairing tool to us. I checked it out and clearly, she’s not the fan of sparkling wine with food that I am (eggs and Champagne - YES!), but the suggestions are good and it’s definitely worth bookmarking.

Plus, it’s situational! Have you ever enjoyed a meal with your loved one when you’ve been arguing? Or, if you suddenly find yourself with an unexpected afternoon off and sharing a picnic with your sweetie in a beautiful park, you’ll probably be in such a good mood that some Kraft singles and a bottle of White Zin somehow become remarkably tasty. OK - now I’m the one going too far to make a point, but we should never underestimate the influence of frame of mind on appreciation of music, art, food or wine.

that lovin feelin

That’s not so tough, is it? These are kind of basic guidelines that you can use as a springboard to reach higher and higher heights of wine and food pairing pleasure. And so many people seem to want to know more about this.

St. Vini suggested that to the question “What should we serve with the salmon ravioli?” the answer should be “Whatever you like.” Absolutely! But what’s wrong with having an informed opinion of “Whatever you like”? Is the salmon smoked? Does it have a cream sauce? It’s not about trying to be “correct”. It’s about exploring and having fun with it. In my experience, when people bother to inquire about how to pair wine with their meal it’s not because they want to bore their friends with their mastery of a bunch of rules. It’s because they love wine and food, love to entertain, and want to have a deliciously wonderful time at the dinner table. Hard to argue with that!

Q: How High can the Alcohol Get?

July 9, 2007 in Answers, Ask our Educator, Wine Education and Winemaking. 1 Comment

Question from Caryll: My father, husband and I have been discussing what is maximum possible alcoholic content in non-fortified wine. Not sherry, port madeira etc. I have noticed the creeping increase in alcoholic content and have preferred the French wines, which until recently hovered around 12%. I seem to recall wines which reached almost 17% but my husband says he thinks that it is impossible to make a wine of more than 14.9%. Help please! And if you could explain why as well…

Moonshine

Reply: Hi, Caryll! Thanks for writing! I swiped this quote from The Winemaking Page: “Nothing about wine is more lasting - or astonishing - than fermentation.” Matt Kramer, Making Sense of Wine.

It’s true that most wild yeasts have a very low alcohol tolerance, often dying off at 5% or less. They say that if you collect grape samples from vines anywhere in the world and analyze the juice, you’d find numerous strains of yeast, some helpful, others not. That’s why we know wine was discovered by mistake.

It wasn’t until the 1800’s that we realized that yeast is responsible for fermentation and, since then, we’ve gotten better at isolating the helpful yeasts. These days most of the world’s wine and beer is fermented with a yeast species called saccharomyces cerevisiae. Quoting Jancis Robinson, it “evolved from ancestral yeast by a process of genome duplication, rearrangements and deletions, estimated to have occurred over the past 100 million years.” Within the species there are several hundred strains with differing characteristics. One of the species’ distinguishing characteristics is very good alcohol tolerance and, as you pointed out, that becomes important when the alcohols start to creep up as they have in recent years.

You can see on this page that, depending upon which yeast the winemaker purchases, there is more or less alcohol tolerance depending upon which yeast strain is selected. Some of these yeasts tolerate upwards of 15% alcohol as a matter of routine.

Winemakers select yeast first for practical considerations, such as lack of off-flavor, heat or cold tolerance, performing well in a barrel vs. a tank, settling nicely when the fermentation is over and, of course, alcohol tolerance. But the science has advanced to the point that certain yeasts are chosen for contributing to flavor or accentuating certain varietal characteristics.

wine yeast

“Wild” or “native” fermentation, in which no yeast is added, is usually a mix of yeasts that inevitably include saccharomyces cerevisiae if wine has been made on the site before. It works its way into the vineyard and becomes part of the winery and is, most likely, the yeast that ultimately gets the job done.

wild yeast

Your husband’s idea that the wine can’t be higher than 14.9% may have something to do with wine tax laws. We’re certainly allowed to produce high-alcohol wines, but when we go over 14% we are taxed as if we made a fortified wine, to which the alcohol is added, and our $1.07 per gallon federal tax goes up to $1.57.

I hope that helps settle your family debate. For everything and more that you might want to learn about yeast, grab a glass of wine and try going to this page.

Cheers! Nancy

Global Warming and our Future?

July 5, 2007 in Wine Education and Wine News. 0 Comments

For those of us who lie awake worrying that Yountville may become the next Fresno due to global warming there’s good news (I think). Recently the Napa Valley Grapegrowers got together for a conference called “The Future of Napa Valley: Beyond Hang Time.” They spent some time on the potential effects of global warming and of course talked about the ever-present hangtime issue itself.

global warming

When you read that more and more people are planting wine grapes in England due to climate change, you can seriously start to wonder about the future of a region that already errs on the warm side. However, as with most things in life, generalizations don’t always work. Like winegrowing itself, it’s site specific.

southern England

So here’s the not-so-scary-sounding forecast from those who are in a better position to know than most:

Number one, the soils ain’t gonna change for the next 100 to 1000 years unless there’s a whopper of an intervention by the Gods or man since, as Dr. Deborah Elliot-Fisk of UC Davis pointed out, “The soils in Napa Valley are 100,000 years old.” She predicts the soils will be stable, except for possibly decreased soil moisture due to warmer temperatures. Sounds like more drought-resistant rootstock is in our future and smart, strategically-timed irrigation practices will be essential so we don’t run through our water supply.

Number two falls in the “people are funny” category and produced my favorite quote from the session. Regarding temperature change and perceived quirky weather patterns, Dr. Rick Snyder of UC Davis said: “All my life people have been saying the weather is unusual.” Yup. I’ve heard a number of people blame this year’s low rainfall on climate change, totally forgetting that we had nearly double our normal rainfall in 2006.

But he foresees climate change, as does Dr. Elliot-Fisk. She predicts that the warmer temperatures in the upper Napa Valley may shift south a little not necessarily meaning hotter hots, but making a bigger percentage of the valley warmer. Good-bye to Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and bubbly?? She says the mountaintops will either stay the same or cool slightly due to increased fog. It may be that the state of California overall will be warmer by about 5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2055 to 2075, with 15 more days of temperatures over 90 degrees. But with our marine influence and Dr. Elliot-Fisk’s predicted increase in fog, the California model won’t necessarily be the Napa Valley reality.

Dr. Snyder summarized the results of a study on Napa Valley weather patterns between 1917 and 2006 and came to the conclusion that “From a grower’s standpoint, the weather has actually improved in Napa.” It shows an increase in the average low temperatures for January and also an increase in average high temperatures at harvest time. But the study shows less risk of extreme rainfall or extreme high or low temperatures today than we had prior to 1988. Living here, it’s hard to believe, but he said there’s been less flooding recently than in the past. Dr. Snyder added that “It’s the extremes that hurt you, not averages”.

The dueling Drs. seem to think that these are manageable changes as long as our viticultural practices shift along with the change.

professional wine grape pickers

Of course, these are projections and none of it is certain. But it’s easier to sleep at night, cooled by the evening fog, minus the nightmares about Yountville’s future as the next raisin capital of the world. More on the hangtime issue to come.