BORDEAUX, France — The landscape in the prestigious vineyards of Bordeaux looks the same as ever, with healthy, ripe grapes hanging heavy off rows of green vines.
But this year something is starkly different in one of France’s most celebrated wine regions and other parts of Europe. The harvest that once started in mid-September is now happening earlier than ever — in mid-August — as a result of severe drought and the wine industry’s adaptation to the unpredictable effects of climate change.
Paradoxically, the season of heat waves and wildfires produced excellent grapes, despite lower yields. But achieving such a harvest required creative changes in growing techniques, including pruning vines in a different way and sometimes watering them in places where irrigation is usually banned. And producers across Europe who have seen first-hand the effects of global warming are worried about what more is to come. So far, “global warming is very positive. We have better ripeness, better balance. … But if you turn to the future, and if you increase the temperature by one degree more, plus, you will lose the freshness part in the balance of the wine,” said Fabien Teitgen, technical director of Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte, an estate that grows organic wine grapes in Martillac, south of Bordeaux.
Grape growers adjusted their practices amid a series of heat waves, combined with lack of rain, that hit most of Europe. In the Bordeaux region, in southwestern France, giant wildfires destroyed large areas of pine forests. It did not rain from the end of June until mid-August.