EnvironmentClimate Change global warmingGermany

Even Climate Change Is Good For Something: German Wine

Global warming can shift the regions where wine grapes grow best.
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Senior Reporter, HuffPost

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A vineyard near Überlingen, a German city on the northern shore of Lake Constance.
Miro Kuzmanovic/Reuters

It may be springtime for vintners in Germany. 

As average temperatures there soared 1.4 degrees centigrade over the last 40 years, the country already famous for its crisp pilsners and Riesling white wines has become more hospitable to the hard-to-grow grapes used to make pinot noir. So the quality of spätburgunder ― as the Germans call it ― is rising.

Bloomberg dubbed it the “buzzy alternative” to increasingly pricey red wines from France’s Burgundy region, which has been ravaged in recent years by unpredictable weather. 

Climate change threatens to destroy crops, submerge coastal cities and parch whole populations. But it could actually benefit some parts of the wine industry ― even in France.

Rising temperatures in France tend to produce early-ripening fruit, which is typically linked to highly rated wines, according to a study published in March by the journal Nature Climate Change.

“Before 1980, you basically needed a drought to generate the heat to get a really early harvest,” study co-author Benjamin Cook, a climate scientist with NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, told NPR at the time. “But since 1980, it’s been so warm because of climate change that you can get the hot summers and really early harvests without needing a drought.”

And not all German winemakers are cheering the change. Organic vineyards there were hit hard by a warm, wet summer that bred infections and blight not easily fought off without chemicals.

But the folks at the Weingut Friedrich Becker Estate in Schweigen, Germany, are celebrating the harvest of pinot noir grapes this year:

Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Friedrich Wilhelm Becker, co-owner of the Weingut Friedrich Becker Estate, fills a glass with pinot noir, also known as spätburgunder, during tasting at his winery in Schweigen, Germany, on Oct. 4, 2016. Global warming has been good to German viticulture, with average temperatures up 1.4 degrees centigrade over the past 40 years, creating the perfect climate for the notoriously finicky pinot noir vines.
Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Bottles of the Weingut Friedrich Becker Estate's 2012 pinot noir sit on display at the winery.
Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Friedrich Wilhelm Becker syphons pinot noir from a barrel during the Oct. 4 tasting.
Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Pinot noir grapes ferment in a tank at the Weingut Friedrich Becker Estate.
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The juice of the grapes drips from a crushing machine during pinot noir production.
Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg/Getty Images
A forklift truck empties a crate of grapes into a crushing machine at the Weingut Friedrich Becker Estate.
Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg/Getty Images
A worker uses a high pressure water hose to clean a fermentation tank.
Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Pinot noir grape stalks sit in a bin.
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A vintner stirs crushed grapes in a fermentation tank during pinot noir production.
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A vintner mixes the pinot noir grapes in a fermentation tank.
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A sign hangs outside the Weingut Friedrich Becker Estate winery in Schweigen, Germany.
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A worker prepares white wine fermentation tanks for use on the Weingut Friedrich Becker Estate.
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A vintner uses a pitchfork to load pinot noir grapes into a crushing machine.
Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg/Getty Images
A tractor transports crates of grapes during the pinot noir harvest.
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Bunches of pinot noir grapes hang from the vines before the harvest.
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Grape pickers work in the vineyard during the pinot noir harvest.
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Bunches of grapes sit in a crate at harvesttime.
Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Pinot noir grape vines grow on the Weingut Friedrich Becker Estate as fog shrouds the landscape beyond in Schweigen, Germany, on Oct. 4, 2016.

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Before You Go

How Scientists Know Climate Change Is Happening
1. The unprecedented recent increase in carbon emissions.(01 of06)
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlights six main lines of evidence for climate change.

First, we have tracked (see chart) the unprecedented recent increase in the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

Without human interference, the carbon in fossil fuels would leak slowly into the atmosphere through volcanic activity over millions of years in the slow carbon cycle. By burning coal, oil, and natural gas, we accelerate the process, releasing vast amounts of carbon (carbon that took millions of years to accumulate) into the atmosphere every year. (credit:CDIAC)
2. We know greenhouse gases absorb heat.(02 of06)
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We know from laboratory and atmospheric measurements that such greenhouse gases do indeed absorb heat when they are present in the atmosphere. (credit:EDF Energy)
3. Global temperatures are rising, and so is the sea level.(03 of06)
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We have tracked significant increase in global temperatures of at least 0.85°C and a sea level rise of 20cm over the past century. (credit:IPCC)
4. Volcanos and sunspots cannot explain the changing temperature.(04 of06)
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We have analyzed the effects of natural events such as sunspots and volcanic eruptions on the climate, and though these are essential to understand the pattern of temperature changes over the past 150 years, they cannot explain the overall warming trend. (credit:WikiCommons)
5. Earth's climate system is changing dramatically.(05 of06)
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We have observed significant changes in the Earth’s climate system including reduced snowfall in the Northern Hemisphere, retreat of sea ice in the Arctic, retreating glaciers on all continents, and shrinking of the area covered by permafrost and the increasing depth of its active layer. All of which are consistent with a warming global climate. (credit:IPCC)
6. Global weather patterns are changing substantially.(06 of06)
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We continually track global weather and have seen significant shifts in weather patterns and an increase in extreme events all around the world. Patterns of precipitation (rainfall and snowfall) have changed, with parts of North and South America, Europe and northern and central Asia becoming wetter, while the Sahel region of central Africa, southern Africa, the Mediterranean and southern Asia have become drier. Intense rainfall has become more frequent, along with major flooding. We’re also seeing more heat waves. According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) between 1880 and the beginning of 2014, the 19 warmest years on record have all occurred within the past 20 years; and 2015 is set to be the warmest year ever recorded.

The map shows the percentage increases in very heavy precipitation (defined as the heaviest 1 percent of all events) from 1958 to 2007 for each region. (credit:Climate Communication)
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