Oenophiles Can Stop Climate Whining

Two years ago in the estimable City Journal I wrote a short article about the stupidity of the climatistas worrying about how the world’s premier wine regions would be ruined by You Know What. Among other observations, I argued:

Might a significantly warmer climate nonetheless make it too hot for grapes in some areas? Even if the climate models turn out to be generally correct (a bad bet at the moment), the models’ lack of local precision makes them useless for forecasting the wine industry’s prospects. Few agricultural enterprises are more dependent on local knowledge of microclimates and adaptation to changing consumer tastes. Even aside from soil composition, an east-facing hillside and a south-facing hillside in the same valley will yield entirely different results, depending on the varietal and the active management of the viticulturalist. No general-circulation climate model could predict what will happen on such a minute scale. Some hillside vineyards calculate harvesting so finely that they pick grapes from the upslope days ahead of the downslope on the same line of grapes, because the effects of daily temperature differences can be measured in real time in the grapes. In the Paso Robles area, whose preeminence in some varietals owes to the region’s having one of the world’s largest diurnal temperature swings, the impact of a generally warmer climate would be lost in the large year-to-year variability that has much more to do with the outcome than the average temperature. . .

In sum, the real world of viticulture bears little relation to the published findings of scientists relying almost entirely on computer models.

Well whaddyaknow. Reuters reports this morning:

Winemakers will survive, international body says of climate change

By Sybille de La Hamaide and Pascale Denis

PARIS (Reuters) – Good news for wine drinkers – a leading international body says grape vines are a hardy little number and can survive climate change, at least over the medium term.

Earlier harvesting, changes in grape varieties and new wine-making processes have already helped counter the impact of the harsher weather hitting vineyards across the globe, the head of the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) says.

“Wine producers all over the world have adapted to the changes and the plant has a capacity of adjustment that you can find in no other plant,” OIV Director General Jean-Marie Aurand told Reuters in an interview.

In sum, good news for premium wine drinkers, bad news for climate whiners. Have some extra processed meats to celebrate.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses