The climate shifting affects of Global Warming have caused shorter, warmer winters in regions across the world. Unfortunately, this means that grapes have less time to freeze on the vine, decreasing the amount of ice wine that can be produced. For the first time in several years, Germany will not produce any ice wines as none of the county's vineyards experienced the required temperature: -7 degrees Celsius. The effect of global warming on Ice Wine extends further beyond the winter of 2019. According to the German Wine Institute: "A succession of warm winters have cut into ice wine production recently, the institute said, noting that in 2017 only seven producers managed to make it, and only five managed it in 2013."
As discussed during the Inniskillin Ice Wine case, Germany has a poor reputation for Ice Wine due to its past scandals, so are we missing out on anything? As the second largest producer of Ice Wine, amongst an already small group of countries that have the climate to support production, declines in supply of the albeit low quality Ice Wines will significantly increase the prices of all other Ice Wines.
Canada too is experiencing shorter, and warmer winters. As winters continue to warm and shorten, will we see innovation in artificial freezing of grapes for Ice Wine production? Or will the supply of Ice Wine continue to dwindle, pushing Ice Wine into an ultra-rare category of wines?
I saw the NYT article on the fact that ice wine might be on its last legs with a warming climate. Similarly to the Inniskillin case, I feel like the opportunity is to market "natural" ice wine (increasingly limited availability) at a super premium price and then have a lower range of "artificial" ice wines to continue to reap some kind of volume benefits in a warming world.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/world/europe/ice-wine-germany.html
Global warming is also having a sizeable impact on the wine industry more broadly. I remember reading an article last year (link below) that summarized the major impacts as (1) wine grapes are being grown in geographies that would have been too cold previously (e.g. deep in the Patagonia in Argentina and Chile, and northern Germany), (2) wines are being planted at higher altitudes than ever before (at higher altitudes peak temps are lower), and (3) growers are re-oritenting vineyards to get less sun in some regions that were historically planted south or southeast (in the northern hemisphere), (4) varietal selection in a given region may shift as the climate shifts, and (5) vineyards are doing their best to plan as a business for climate disasters like drought, fires and floods.
ReplyDeleteArticle: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/14/dining/drinks/climate-change-wine.html