Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff Lauren Vogebam Here could global climate change
Speaker 1: put an end to the centuries old French wine industry?
Speaker 1: Effects on the vineyards might not be catastrophic today, but
Speaker 1: a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change suggests
Speaker 1: that climate change is definitely making its mark on how
Speaker 1: French wine is produced. For the article, this episode is
Speaker 1: based on how Stuff Works. Spoke with the studies lead
Speaker 1: author Benjamin Cook, a climate scientist to Columbia University's Lamont
Speaker 1: Doherty Earth Observatory and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
Speaker 1: He said, the wine industry is so closely connected to
Speaker 1: what's happening with climate change. We focused on France because
Speaker 1: they've been making wine for centuries and have records going
Speaker 1: back four hundred years about that. To really understand the study,
Speaker 1: you have to understand a little bit about wine making
Speaker 1: and so many things effect what makes a stellar wine,
Speaker 1: from the type of grape and the soil to the vineyards,
Speaker 1: microclimate and elevation. This is a concept referred to as
Speaker 1: the wines terroir in France. This idea of teteroirs and
Speaker 1: the desire to help individual wineries really market and protect
Speaker 1: their products, eventually led to the Appeleichandorjan Controllee system. In
Speaker 1: nineteen five, it was replaced with the appeleiean Doujan protege in.
Speaker 1: This is a French certification system that defines geographical regions
Speaker 1: and regulates agricultural products like wine, and two of France's
Speaker 1: most popular wine regions, Champagne and Burgundy, were named UNESCO
Speaker 1: World Heritage Sites in As you can imagine, the climate
Speaker 1: in each tear war varies greatly in much of France.
Speaker 1: Harvest records have shown that the best vintages have been
Speaker 1: those where the weather included lots of spring rain, hot summer,
Speaker 1: and a late season drought, which forces the vines to
Speaker 1: fruit and mature fast. Wine making is one of the
Speaker 1: cornerstones of the French economy. One point to two billion
Speaker 1: gallons that's four point six billion liters of wine were
Speaker 1: produced in France, up twelve percent over under normal circumstances.
Speaker 1: More than ten million people visit the wine regions of
Speaker 1: France every year, so it's no surprise that the French
Speaker 1: people consider wine making a near sacred part of their heritage.
Speaker 1: In the study, Cook and his co author, Elizabeth Walkovic,
Speaker 1: an ecologist at Harvard University, analyzed climate data, reconstructions of temperature, precipitation,
Speaker 1: and soil moisture, and vineyard records dating back to the
Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds. Cook said, but what we found was vineyards
Speaker 1: were harvesting on average ten days earlier, and higher quality
Speaker 1: wines are associated with earlier harvest dates in this region,
Speaker 1: and this connection is still holding. During the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: France has warmed about two point seven degrees fahrenheit that's
Speaker 1: one point five celsius, and continues to climb up. Until
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, the climate in France was too cool
Speaker 1: to force an early harvest without the extra heat added
Speaker 1: by a late season drought. That seems to have now changed.
Speaker 1: Cook said, today vineyards are achieving these early harvests without
Speaker 1: the late season drought. It's not clear what this will
Speaker 1: mean in the long term, but it's a clear signal
Speaker 1: of climate change. So it's not all doom and gloom
Speaker 1: for the French wine industry by far. In fact, these
Speaker 1: temperature changes have actually been good for many of the
Speaker 1: French vineyards, but that might not hold true forever. Cook said,
Speaker 1: we found evidence that there may be an upper limit
Speaker 1: in how early grapes can be harvested. In two thousand three,
Speaker 1: when a record heatwave hit western Europe and forced to
Speaker 1: the earliest harvest ever in France, the wines produced should
Speaker 1: have been of exception old quality, but they weren't. Cook explained,
Speaker 1: it's worth noting that whether years like two thousand three
Speaker 1: are what we expect in the coming decades with climate change,
Speaker 1: could we one day see French vineyards start irrigating their grapes. Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Might we one day see a Burgundy region san pinot
Speaker 1: noir or a Bordeaux without cabernets. Possibly. Study projected that
Speaker 1: by two thirds of today's wine regions might not have
Speaker 1: climates suitable for the grapes that they grow now. So
Speaker 1: could France be forced to start growing grape varieties that
Speaker 1: are adapted to hotter, drier conditions. Cook said, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying anyone should do these things specifically. What our studies
Speaker 1: shows definitively is climate change is having an impact and
Speaker 1: it might make it very difficult to grow grapes in
Speaker 1: certain parts of certain regions. Today's episode is based on
Speaker 1: the article climate change is affecting French Wines or Good
Speaker 1: and Bad on how stuff Works dot Com, written by
Speaker 1: Sarah Glin. Brainstuff is production of my heart Radio in
Speaker 1: partnership with how stuff Works dot Com and is produced
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