Climate Change in the Vineyards

Pascal Marty

🍇𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐡 𝐕𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐲𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬: 𝐚 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲! From Alsace to Champagne, Burgundy to Bordeaux, every region has experienced Mediterranean conditions in recent years.

♨️The land undulates under the merciless sun, cracked by thirst. Usually green and luxuriant, it now takes on a russet hue, scorched by the ardour of a capricious climate.

France’s wine-growing landscapes, sculpted by centuries of tradition, are faltering under the onslaught of global warming. Where mists once caressed the vines of Burgundy, where mildness once tempered the hills of Bordeaux, there some years reigns an implacable, heavy, almost insolent light.

☀️In those years, autumn mornings in the Champagne region no longer shimmer with the same veil of freshness. The vines are in a hurry, panicked by the heat, which pushes them to ripen too early. The acidity of the berries, once razor-sharp, is blunted, making the wines rounder, more powerful and sometimes unrecognizable. Further south, in the Rhône Valley, the hillsides are drying out. The earth, hungry for water, crunches under the feet of the winegrowers who peer up at the sky, hoping for rain that is all too often absent.

👉But the French vineyard does not go down without a fight. It is reshaping itself, adapting, even migrating. New and/or forgotten grape varieties, robust and tenacious, take root where only yesterday they were unknown. Man, faithful to his terroir, learns to tame this now unpredictable climate.