Climate Change Experimentation

Trellises and companion crops in Galicia

Another article in the New York Times covers how the desert of Isreal is being used to test how the grapes of today will react to the climate of tomorrow. That's actually pretty smart. And, once again, they are adopting techniques we have already implemented like using trellises and ventilation.

What they won't learn, however, is how the extremes of climate will affect the grape output and production of wine. For that you need climate variability. And we certainly are getting a lot of that here. Today, soaking warm rain all day. Friday, the possibility of snow.

And it's not just vintners that are adjusting. Everyone in agriculture is scrambling to find answers. Fruit and nut farmers are having the toughest time as it takes so long to get to mature status for trees.

Netting to shade grapes

The NYT examines climate change’s impact on wine

In the last line of part one in the 4-part series on the effects of climate change on viticulture, New York Times columnist Eric Azimov concludes,

"Viticulture by its nature is complicated. As the world’s climates are transformed, it is only becoming more so."

Curiously, he recounts the thinking of wine grape growers around the world and it sounds eerily familiar. Everything I've been writing about for the past 5 years is in there. The vines I've chosen, the location, the experimentation with different varietals, the soil effects, the thinking behind the decisions, and so on are all in there. Reading it made me feel like a scientist again. Reading it also made me think that I'm a mad scientist: smart enough to know how to try and crazy enough to try when everything is getting increasingly unpredictable. What have we done?  Are we going to drive ourselves insane?

I can't wait to read the next instalment.

Here's what the promotional statement about the series said:

"Around the world, smart wine producers are working on ways to keep their vineyards flourishing despite hotter summers, warmer winters, droughts and the sometimes violent expressions of climate change, like freak hailstorms, spring frosts, flooding and wildfires.

In the first of a four-part series, The Times’s wine critic, Eric Asimov, teases out the major themes: new technologies, experiments with different grapes, a shifting map for viticulture, higher-altitude vineyards and planting to limit rather than maximize exposure to sunlight."

Post-Lorenzo

Well, we got off lucky. The vineyard suffered little damage, just some broken branches, from extra-tropical cyclone Lorenzo.  The orchard did okay, too, with just a few pears on the ground. The donkeys were not seen during the hurricane at all and we suspect they were hiding in their hollow on the north side. The winds were howling from the SE and then SW all day and all night, but the worst we got was 65 knots (120 km/hr). No damage that we could see to house or land, and our friend's boat was undamaged on our mooring.

Mace Head, at the northern corner of Galway Bay had a little less and our boat did fine in Kilrush up the Shannon River. So all in all, not too bad for the strongest hurricane (Category 5 at one stage) to come as far north and east in history. 

The donkeys have since all been accounted for. All nine came down to say Hi yesterday.

🔴 Mace head in the last hour had a gust of 108km/h and also had an average mean wind speed (10mins) of 87km/h. 🔴

🔺 The 87km/h mean speed would be under Red Warning Criteria. 🔺

Met Eireann's Red Warning Criteria;

Mean Speeds in excess of 80 km/h
Gusts Speeds in excess of 130 km/h

Obviously there was no Red Warning but just shows there may be no wind in some parts of the country but others can be much worse!

Highest Wind gust at Weather Alerts Ireland HQ was 51km/h yesterday.

Grape expectations

If you recall last year, we decided on the 14th of September that the grapes needed one more day to sweeten. On the 15th they were gone. We assumed the birds had taken them. We vowed to protect them the following year. 

So this year, we set a calendar alert to remind us to be vigilant around the 14th of September. Alex bought a kite that looks like a raptor which is supposed to chase birds away. Except he tested it in the vegetable garden and it flew rather erratically in our erratic climate conditions. He gave up. 

On the 13th, we determined the grapes were not yet ready. On the 14th, we had torrential rain all day. A friend stopped by and Alex took him up to the vineyard in the rain to admire the vines and the grapes. It was about 1 pm and the grapes were impressive. It was too wet to harvest so we decided to wait one more day. There was no evidence of birds in the vineyard and the cats were making themselves quite visible there.  

On the 15th, a beautiful sunny morning, I took my basket and sheers and went to harvest the grapes. You guessed it, they were gone. All the ripe grapes were gone. A few unripe ones were left behind. I couldn't believe it. All gone. I chided the three cats who accompanied me to the vineyard for sleeping on the job. I found one the culprits missed and tasted it. It was juicy and sweet but small. We would have had to photograph our harvest in a very small basket to make it look more substantial. But now all we have are the empty stalks. 

Next year, a scarecrow, netting, and 24-hour watch schedule. They're not getting in the way of our grape expectations again!

Post-Hurricane Grapedom

Dorian came and went dropping lots of rains but sparing us the winds that the Bahamas and North America experienced. We had little damage, only some overturned and displaced items around the yard.

The grapes have gotten bigger as a result of the rain, and they are turning red quickly now, but are still not sweet enough. There are no white grapes on the Solaris vines that I could find, only red grapes on the Rondo vines. This is completely contrary to last year. Harvest in about a week.

We won't have enough to attempt wine but it's still fun to watch over them and ponder 'What if?'

Hurricanes

Hurricane Dorian devastated the Abacos and Grand Bahama when he stalled there for almost 2 days as a category 5 storm just over a week ago, then skirted the coast of the states before making landfall again in Nova Scotia as a category 2. Now he's made it across the Atlantic. Thankfully, he's no longer a hurricane but he's still packing a lot of water.

We're expecting two extratropical storms, Dorian and Gabrielle, this week, and the effects have already begun. Light rain and wind expected this afternoon with heavy rain overnight and again on Thursday. What will this do to grapes that are ripening about a week before harvest?

I hope the donkeys don't get swept away.

Veraison: grapes turning red!

The Rondo grapes are turning red

One of the most important moments in a grapevine’s annual lifecycle is the onset of ripening of its fruit. In viticulture, the grapes actually visually signal that onset of ripening in a transition called veraison (“verr-ray-zun”). It's when red varietal grapes turn from green to red and begin to sweeten naturally. The term was originally French but has been adopted into English use. The official definition of veraison is a change of colour of grape berries. Veraison also occurs in white grapes but without changing colour – white grapes simply become more translucent.

Veraison typically begins at the end of July in the northern hemisphere. It didn't begin here until the end of August. But we didn't have such great weather this summer. 

During veraison, chemical changes take place inside the grapes. The green chlorophyll is replaced by carotenoids in white grapes turning them more golden or purplish anthocyanins in red grapes. They become filled with glucose, fructose and aromatics. 

The acidity decreases while sweetness increases until they reach the perfect balance for harvesting. The veraison period also signals to viticulturists when to trim their vines, prepare for pests and birds, and keep an eye on the clusters, as some can change colour unevenly, like ours are doing now.

As it appears that year 5 is not the bumper year we were hoping for, we will watch and learn and set our sights on year 6, when the experts say the really good things begin to happen. Only the Rondo vines produced grapes this year. There are few if any grapes set on the white Solaris grapevines. A bit disappointing after the nice performance last year. 

They are ripening unevenly

The vineyard is looking vinyardy.

3-yo Chardonnay vines are looking good

1-yo Pinot noir

1-yo Albarino all alive and well