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Science

Global Warming Brings Better Wine 32

Posted by timothy from the where-in-the-cycle-are-we dept.
Makarand writes "According to this article in the SF Chronicle climatologists have a found a link between the warming environment and wine quality. They found that most vintages improved as vineyards' temperatures rose over the past 50 years with the quality improvement more pronounced in the cooler wine-producing regions." I wonder how wine fared during the "Little Ice Age."
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Global Warming Brings Better Wine More

Global Warming Brings Better Wine

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  • Or... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by panker ( 461977 )
    did they just take 50 years to learn how to make wine?
  • now we can drink ourselves senseless with quality vino while ruining the planet for countless of millions of years in the future!

    is it just me or is science getting more decadent every year. the supposed brightests minds humanity has, have nothing better to do than this?
    • no, its just that there are a lot of scientists in the world, and since even the mediocre ones need something to do, things like these keep them busy and out of the real scientist's way

  • Shocker: Climate change affects agriculture!!! (Score:3, Informative)

    by kinnell ( 607819 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @11:06AM (#7453125)
    I'm not an expert, but I was under the impression that wine quality improves with more sunlight. This does not necessarily correlate with an increase in temperature on either a local or global scale, although there is obviously a relationship. And like the article says, if it's too warm, the quality suffers. Also, don't forget the effect of varying amounts of rain caused by global warming in various regions. Essentially, some regions will benefit, while others will suffer from changing conditions, and it's probably unpredictable who will be the winners and the losers.

    So to summarise: climate change effects agriculture. This is news?

  • CO2 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Gamasta ( 557555 )
    Did they take in account the extra CO2 present in the atmosphere? I'd say that this improves a little the taste as well.
  • Unfortunately, this research, like most research on the Earth's atmosphere, has a sample size of one. Until we can create accurate simulation models and do valid in silico experiments, most of the work will suffer from an inability to distinguish between correlation vs. causation.

    You can do some real science with controls and statistical sample sizes. If the researchers had controlled the environmental conditions on various identical plots of vines to provide higher/lower temperatures, higher/lower CO2

  • OK here it comes... (Score:4, Funny)

    by tsa ( 15680 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @12:22PM (#7453746) Homepage
    What the **** has global warming to do with a windows emulator?
  • I remember reading a story, or seeing in a movie, where an old farmer would start each day by spraying some aerosol can contents out the door in hopes of causing Global Warming, so that winters wouldn't be so bad in his northern US homestead. What was that movie or book?

    I though it might be a Simpsons reference (isn't everything?), but the closest I could come was when Global Warming brought good weather to the Costington's Christmas Parade [snpp.com].
  • I wonder how wine fared during the "Little Ice Age."

    Why, they made a little ice wine, of course!

    • From what I have read about planters' social life in the Virginia coastal region in the late 1700's it was very common to use their wines to make a punch. Does this imply a wine that won't serve well by itself?
  • In our concern over global warming I think real costs Vs benefit analysis has been missing. Any global shift in the temperature is going to have both its good points and bad. In some places a global rise in temperature will without a doubt be damning. In other places though I imagine it would be welcomed.

    Natural or not, before we get too worked up over the idea of global warming I think a better overall look at what the befits might be should be weighed. It very well could be that if we put enough effor
    • Right now we are simply acting on reflex. Things are changing and we are simply jumping to stop it. There has not been a real coherent discussion to my knowledge over whether or not perhaps a warmer earth is a good thing in the long run, it has just been an argument between industry and environmentalist, with industry automatically the side that controlling the climate is expensive, and environmentalist fighting to keep the climate from ever changing. No one is really considering the overall costs and benef
    • The problem is that the world's agriculture tends to be focused in the areas that are currently best suited climatically. Any climate change is going to disrupt that and cause economic problems. That is the primary argument for doing what we can to keep the climate constant.
  • But regions with warmer climates, such as Italy's famed Chianti region, could see grapes ripen too quickly under even warmer temperatures. Grapes that ripen too quickly on the vine generally have higher sugar content, which produces more alcoholic wine with less acidity and balance.

    Please, tell me we're not going to lose good Chianti! It's easily my favorite variety of wine, and to have the quality decrease will be a real disappointment. I'd rather keep good Chianti around then have dozens more vineyar
  • SilverOak.com [silveroak.com] has some great wine making videos [silveroak.com]. Silver Oak is my favorite wine, but it's way too expensive in most cases.

    Readers interested in the correlation between wine and global warming may also be interested in the way in which wine makers prevent frost on the grapes during the colder months - there is a video there on that site that describes the process. They actually just spray the vineyard down with sprinklers, preventing the formation of frost and ice. Can't link to that video directly.

    Over
    • I have seen similar frost protection for the orange groves but they sprayed water hoping for ice to cover the fruit, this prevents the fruit from experencing the lower temperature that would cause loss of the harvest. The ice covered fruit stays as a constant tempreature of I believe 30-32 degrees f. while the outside (of the ice covering) might go to 20-25 deg f. which would make the fruit unusable. If the grapes you suggest are sprayed with water and it is at or below the freezing point ice will form, but
  • I live in one of the places of the world where excellent quality wine is produced: Catalonia (Spain). This is north of Spain, south of France.
    Priorat Wines [priorat.org] are made here, and many other very good wines.

    This has been and extremely warm summer and some country people started telling this harvest was going to be one of the best since 100 years [reforma.com]. This is a false asumption due to the fact that grapes mature sooner and got many sugar. Sugar is the key to develop alcohol.

    So you got it, lots of sugar, lots of alc
  • It's not as if global warming is the only thing that's been going on in the last 50 years. There's been tons of research into new cultural methods for growing grapes, not to mention new grape varieties and new winemaking techniques. This progress has been especially pronounced in what would normally have been thought of as rather marginal sites, particularly those too cold to do well under standard viticultural practices. Most of the work that's been done on trellis designs has been done in that time pe

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