Chapter 13 – What can this harvest tell us about the reality of increasing climate extremes?
It’s the end of harvest time for the Northern Hemisphere, the fruits of the 2024 vintage now processed and safely resting in the winery. While some regions in mainland Europe started harvesting pretty early this year, other producers across the continent and in the UK had to hold on much longer for fruit to ripen. Why? We could be quick to answer this away with the difference in latitude and type of climate – but is there more at play here?
It is widely accepted within the wine industry that the changing climate is driving the variability we are experiencing in weather patterns and the consequential impacts on grape growing. The challenge that climate change presents is ultimately expected to be how to successfully manage extremes. The main extremes grape growers need to be increasingly prepared for are likely to be prolonged droughts and paradoxically, heavy rainfall. Unfortunately, both can increase the risk of disease and damage to vines lacking resilience, and therefore reduce crop yield.
Europe’s 2024 harvest
Throwing a spotlight on this year, in England we have not seen our glorious British summer. Instead, there has been little sun and cool temperatures compounded with persistent wet weather, which hindered sufficient grape ripening and severely increased disease pressure. The result is a very low yielding year, which in part was expected after last year’s bumper crop as vines need time to recover, yet the quality has been reported in many cases as exceptional.
Marcus Rayner-Ward, Head Winemaker at Wiston Estate in West Sussex, is “quietly happy” with the outcome of this harvest due to the quality of wines emerging from it, whilst acknowledging the hardships undertaken to make it through this year.
Yet just as we breathe a sigh of relief that this growing season is over, a recent prediction suggests that in the next decade, the UK is increasingly likely to see prolonged heavy rains, flash flooding and in the warmest regions, much larger storms.
A friend of ours more local to Bath has a small vineyard that produces more than eight tonnes of fruit per year in the Yeo Valley. In September, he said that this vintage is the worst he’s experienced in the 13 years since planting his first vines. “The crop is small and behind where it should be and if I had to guess I am expecting to bring in less than 50% of last year’s yield.”
There is a similar story in the Loire Valley, France, with one of the wettest growing seasons in recent years. Continual rain in the spring and early summer caused issues during flowering, namely coulure, filage and downy mildew. Coulure is when grapes do not fertilise or the tiny berries fall off quickly after forming. Filage is when vine shoots become tendrils rather than fruit bearing. Downy mildew is a highly destructive disease of the vine leaves caused by a fungus. All three reduce yield.
Lionel Gosseaume, our Gamay producer in Touraine, Loire, said “it has been a tricky season that resulted in a small and late harvest compared with other years, although the quality of the fruit was very good.”
Conversely, in Austria harvest came very early, also bringing with it considerably lower expected yields than in previous years. This is due to temperamental weather conditions early on during the growing season. Warmer than usual winter into spring months caused early budding (when the vine buds burst and grow into new shoots) which were then damaged in late spring frosts. On top of this, the summer months were especially hot, in excess of 30 degrees Celsius, rapidly ripening the grapes and making early harvest essential to retain the right sugar-to-acid ratio.
Our Grüner supplier, Weingut Huber, has experienced a loss of a quarter of their usual harvest yield due to the frost damage in spring this year. On the bright side, the smaller yield has resulted in more concentrated fruit.
In Puglia, Southern Italy, this summer has been very hot and also let to harvest happening a couple weeks earlier than usual. Last year saw abnormally heavy rainfall at the start of the growing season, triggering a devastating outbreak of downy mildew – a very different story. These impacts of last year’s extreme weather are still being felt in the 2024 growing season with yields down as the vines recover. This has especially impacted organically managed vines, such as those harvested for The Copper Crew wines, because organic growers are much more limited in what they can spray on vines to protect against disease.
Looking ahead
Now is an uncertain time to be a grower with the need to adapt to maintain an economically viable living from grape growing becoming more critical than ever. Several are moving towards more disease resistant grape varieties in marginal climates like northern Europe, while others are planting heat and drought resistant vines that can retain freshness and acidity in hot climates, including some of our own suppliers. Assyrtiko is a good example of this type of variety, as is Grenache/Garnacha. Producers are also experimenting with techniques in the vineyard, such as canopy management and planting other crops to increase biodiversity, to combat the effects of climate change. Some are also looking to actively fight against the intensification of climate change, with projects such as carbon sequestration back into the soils.
Whatever the approach, it is becoming increasing apparent that we will need to see rapid adaptation at site level to preserve the future of the wine industry.
