Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey brain Stuff Lauren Vogebam Here could global climate change put an end to the centuries old French wine industry? Effects on the vineyards might not be catastrophic today, but a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change suggests that climate change is definitely making its mark on how French wine is produced. For the article, this episode is
based on how Stuff Works. Spoke with the studies lead author Benjamin Cook, a climate scientist to Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He said, the wine industry is so closely connected to what's happening with climate change. We focused on France because they've been making wine for centuries and have records going
back four hundred years about that. To really understand the study, you have to understand a little bit about wine making and so many things effect what makes a stellar wine, from the type of grape and the soil to the vineyards, microclimate and elevation. This is a concept referred to as the wines terroir in France. This idea of teteroirs and the desire to help individual wineries really market and protect
their products, eventually led to the Appeleichandorjan Controllee system. In nineteen five, it was replaced with the appeleiean Doujan protege in. This is a French certification system that defines geographical regions and regulates agricultural products like wine, and two of France's most popular wine regions, Champagne and Burgundy, were named UNESCO World Heritage Sites in As you can imagine, the climate in each tear war varies greatly in much of France.
Harvest records have shown that the best vintages have been those where the weather included lots of spring rain, hot summer, and a late season drought, which forces the vines to fruit and mature fast. Wine making is one of the cornerstones of the French economy. One point to two billion gallons that's four point six billion liters of wine were produced in France, up twelve percent over under normal circumstances.
More than ten million people visit the wine regions of France every year, so it's no surprise that the French people consider wine making a near sacred part of their heritage. In the study, Cook and his co author, Elizabeth Walkovic, an ecologist at Harvard University, analyzed climate data, reconstructions of temperature, precipitation, and soil moisture, and vineyard records dating back to the
sixteen hundreds. Cook said, but what we found was vineyards were harvesting on average ten days earlier, and higher quality wines are associated with earlier harvest dates in this region, and this connection is still holding. During the twentieth century, France has warmed about two point seven degrees fahrenheit that's one point five celsius, and continues to climb up. Until the nineteen eighties, the climate in France was too cool to force an early harvest without the extra heat added
by a late season drought. That seems to have now changed. Cook said, today vineyards are achieving these early harvests without the late season drought. It's not clear what this will mean in the long term, but it's a clear signal of climate change. So it's not all doom and gloom for the French wine industry by far. In fact, these temperature changes have actually been good for many of the
French vineyards, but that might not hold true forever. Cook said, we found evidence that there may be an upper limit in how early grapes can be harvested. In two thousand three, when a record heatwave hit western Europe and forced to the earliest harvest ever in France, the wines produced should have been of exception old quality, but they weren't. Cook explained, it's worth noting that whether years like two thousand three are what we expect in the coming decades with climate change,
could we one day see French vineyards start irrigating their grapes. Absolutely? Might we one day see a Burgundy region san pinot noir or a Bordeaux without cabernets. Possibly. Study projected that by two thirds of today's wine regions might not have climates suitable for the grapes that they grow now. So could France be forced to start growing grape varieties that are adapted to hotter, drier conditions. Cook said, I'm not
saying anyone should do these things specifically. What our studies shows definitively is climate change is having an impact and it might make it very difficult to grow grapes in certain parts of certain regions. Today's episode is based on the article climate change is affecting French Wines or Good and Bad on how stuff Works dot Com, written by Sarah Glin. Brainstuff is production of my heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot Com and is produced
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