While Americans, and in particular Californians, Oregonians and Washingtonians, work themselves into a fine lather about the environment and its perceived changes, we here in New Orleans are just as concerned about Mardi Gras costumes; Jazz Fest artists; massive oil disasters; and strong, counter-clockwise storms coming out of the Gulf.
Whenever I share with our Western friends that we don’t have city-run curbside recycling or that we cool our houses down to 70 degrees when the outside temperature is 95 or that we have never rationed a drop of water in our lives, watering our lawns and washing our cars when we damn well please and as often as we like, they look at me as if I had just dropped in from Mars.
It’s not that we don’t want to treat our planet with respect. It’s that we don’t lay much stock in doing so. Honestly, have you ever skipped a trip to the grocery store because you were concerned about automobile gas emissions? Have you ever not run your home air conditioning because generating electricity is not environmentally friendly? Have you ever not watered your yard or washed your car because it would require that water be wasted? You might have done these things because gasoline is expensive or you already pay too much money to Entergy, but your motives were not purely to save Mother Earth.
I would like to suggest that around here we are all disaster-fatigued and that recycling or concern for the air quality is important, just not very high on our list of priorities right now. But even before Katrina and BP, we were not the best friends with our planet.
Yet now, we are seeing effects of global warming, and they are showing up in subtle ways. In fact, they are showing up in the wines we love.
Before I get into that story, let me state up front that I appreciate that the climate of the planet is changing. It may be the hand of man, or it may be the natural order of a planet that is constantly changing, but change is upon us. The thaw of polar ice and the high levels of ozone in the air over many of our cities are proof enough that something is going on. It’s the root cause that is under discussion. And that is not a discussion I am going to have here.
Grapes are a fragile fruit. They are reflective of their location and their time. That is why they make such good beverages, which are different depending on both factors. A grape’s place provides certain qualities, and the time during which the grape budded, matured and was picked influences flavors and aromas.
When change to their surroundings occurs, such as too much or too little sun, rain, fog, heat, cool, hail or wind, the grapes are not adaptable to new conditions. They are what they are, and they cannot become something else quickly. New styles of grapes can be inserted into the new circumstances, but still, there is a five-year curve to mature the vine and receive proper fruit.
Because of these sensitivities, grapes are better barometers of climatological changes than other crops, such as wheat or rice. Even small differences in temperature within the same general areas can cause grapes to act differently. In Spain, the producers of the sparkling wine known as cava struggle to achieve ripening, to control alcohol and acidity levels and to retain nitrogen levels necessary to create a wine with fizz. Less than 150 miles away, not that far in earth terms, the region of Rioja has benefitted from a string of excellent vintages, where ripening, alcohol levels and sugars are just where they need to be.
But the Rioja producers know one thing, and so do the cava producers, which is why they are not moving: The meteorological changes are coming to every sector. Temperatures are rising throughout the region. In fact, temperatures, on the average, are rising all over the globe.
In Germany, where the cooler winters have historically set in early, they are now achieving decent ripeness due to longer hang-time in the vineyards but without the accompanying quality. The issue here is moisture. Ernst Loosen, winemaker in the Mosel, fears that changing weather patterns will cause long-term damage.
“We get extreme thunderstorms,” he says. “We get as much water in three hours as we used to receive in a week.” This from a family that has been watching the weather and growing grapes for more than 200 years.
Over in Burgundy it has not gone unnoticed that the date of the harvest is moving earlier and earlier. The grapes are ripening sooner, which leads to wines with excess sugars and acidity defects. Some growers are concerned that the pinot noir grape is having difficulty adapting to the conditions and the ability to produce fine and elegant wines is in danger of ending.
In Australia, which does not have the constrictive agricultural and processing laws that are in place in the old European world, winemakers have installed overhead sprinklers, activated at night, to give the grapes a proper rest from the heat. Also canopy management programs for the vines have been altered to provide greater protection to the fruit.
And here in Australia, the dreaded “m” word is starting to be used. There are, in some instances, plans to move further south, which in the Land Down Under means to a cooler clime. Of course, moving cannot continue indefinitely because there is a large impediment at some point, a large body of water known as the Great Australian Bight, which opens into the Indian Ocean.
Even some growers in Napa Valley are eyeing new opportunities north into Lake and Mendocino counties. There is a sense that in the not-too-distant future the rising levels of heat on the Napa Valley floor will not allow the production of the style of wine for which the region is justly famous.
Wine grapes are best suited for certain places, and if those places experience meteorological change, then grape growers have two choices: 1) stay in place, and produce wines that are not as good as previous harvests or 2) move to places with better climates. Again, the Old Wine World of Europe defines precisely where the grapes can be grown and even what grapes to grow. So moving is not an option. With world competition being what it is, producing wines of lesser quality is also not an attractive option.
The drama is going to play out. Regions that for centuries have been lauded as being the perfect place to make a particular wine will not idly stand by and allow nature to put them out of business.

But we all know what a fickle girl Ms. Nature can be. Believe me, we really know.
And if you taste that 2012 Burgundy or Bordeaux or Rioja or Chianti and you feel that the wine is not as good as it was back in the late 1980s, maybe you are on to something.
The Wine Show with Tim McNally can be heard every Sunday from noon to 2 p.m. on WIST-AM 690.