Unpredictable weather patterns significantly impact global wine production in 2024. Major wine-producing nations like France and Italy face shrinking grape crops due to extreme weather events, forcing farmers to rely heavily on pesticide use. The article explores the rise of regenerative farming practices, the resilience of old vines, and the challenges posed by climate change to the wine industry.
In a word, weather, lots of it and rarely following established patterns, is what happened to wine in 2024. France and Italy, the world’s most important wine-producing countries, saw this year’s grape crops shrivel thanks to a series of what we now call “weather events”, most of which put severe pressure on those trying to farm organically or biodynamically. The number of times vignerons had to spray their vines rose to record levels.
The new buzzword in farming is regenerative, putting all the emphasis on soil health rather than what happens above ground. The official certification body for regenerative viticulture, the Regenerative Organic Alliance, has certified 13 wine estates in California, and one, Mirabeau, in France, with Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) status. In these times of unpredictable weather, old vines have proved much more resilient, and there have recently been official moves to define what constitutes an “old” vine, based on the definitions in the free online compendium of old vineyards worldwide, the Old Vine Registry. So with any luck terms such as Vieilles Vignes on labels will come to mean something dependable. The world’s third and fourth most important wine producers, Spain and California, have suffered extreme rainfall after being plagued by drought. Meanwhile, grapes in countries regarded as cool not so long ago now suffer from sunburn. Wildfires are affecting even classic wine regions such as Bordeaux. Warmer winters encourage earlier budbreak, putting the nascent crop at increasing risk of spring frost. Whole regions such as Hawke’s Bay in New Zealand can be transformed by cyclones. Total wine production around the world continues to fall, and certainly won’t rally while so many French vignerons take advantage of the official vine pull scheme. In a macro sense, this is not so bad, since total wine consumption also continues to fall, but the effect on individual farmers can be tragi
Wine Production Climate Change Weather Extremes Regenerative Farming Old Vines
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