In the sought-after opinion of globetrotting Greg Jones, there is no doubt.
"We are in a different place than we were 15 years ago," he said.
Global climate change is with us.
"At Schloss Johannisberg in Germany where cuttings for some of the Riesling in the Northwest came from, they have a marker for the 50th-degree latitude line that used to be the northern fringe for viticulture," Jones said. "Now, you have viticulture up to 52, 53, 54 degrees. That's clearly happening."
This professor of environmental studies at Southern Oregon University in Ashland is viewed by many as the planet's leading climatologist with regards to viticulture. Aside from Argentina and Chile, he's done first-hand research in virtually every major wine-growing region in the world. Yet one of his prime examples of global-climate change is home-grown.
"Go to the Willamette Valley. When some of the earliest people came to Oregon post prohibition - Richard Sommer, David Lett, Dick Erath - people in California thought they were nuts!" Jones exclaimed. "The baseline climate back then was right at the margin. You could have one good climatic year in five, six, seven, eight vintages to produce a pretty good crop, but it was a real challenge the rest of the time. If you look back at the data, it's just hard to understand how they had the cajones to do it.
"Fast-forward that to today," he continued. "We're talking about a place that has now eight years in 10, nine years in 10 of a good ripeable vintage. Now, there are still issues. There could be rain during harvest. There could be frost. But the baseline suitability and structure is very different."
Trends exist. And yet winemaker Kay Simon of Chinook Wines in Prosser, Wash., points out the subtlety between the theory of global climate change and so-called global warming.
"From my point of view, it's conjecture at this point," she said. "I haven't done the science. That's for the climatologists to say that this is statistically happening. It would seem that we're having somewhat warmer harvests and seasons, and then you have a (cool) summer like this one. I can say that the winter of 1978-79 was memorable for all of us who were here then, but we've had some hard winters just in the last few years."
In British Columbia's Okanagan Valley, vineyard managers don't fear the winter as much.
"Even in the established vineyards, we'd have to take the first year's growth - the single cane - and bury them because of the winters," said Walter Gehringer of Gehringer Brothers Estate Winery in Oliver. "That isn't being done by anyone now, and that allows for a more rapid growth in the plant. That in itself is a huge change."
No well-established viticulture region in the Northwest sees cooler temperatures than Idaho's high-elevation Snake River Valley.
Ron Bitner of Bitner Vineyards in Caldwell said whatever changes are taking place often depend on the variety, and sometimes it's a matter of winemaking style.
"I have thought about it a lot, but I planted my vineyards 27 years ago, and I still harvest Chardonnay in the third week in September," he said. "My reds are 17 years old, and I am harvesting them a little early. My Cabernet, we harvest in early- to mid-October, and it used to be the end of October. But over the past 10 years, the degree-day accumulation hasn't changed that much."
Site selection in the Okanagan Valley isn't as critical as in the past. History is being overlooked or ignored.
"A lot of plantings have been done on the benches to get out of the low-lying areas and the frosts," Gehringer said. "Now, a lot of the orchards - which were in the low-lying areas - are getting ripped out and converted to grapes. Folks already have forgotten about the frosts."
Climate change, global warming
Meta-analysis by Jones indicates a warming of 1.1 to 4.5 degrees Centigrade in wine regions by the year 2050. His "best estimate" scales that to warming by 1.7 to 2.2 degrees Centigrade with plants showing an earlier shift in their growth cycle.
"Warming of this magnitude would push many existing regions to consider changing varieties or even outside of what is considered suitable today," he tells groups, adding, "Terroirs as we know them will have to change in one way or another"
Then again, there's this cooler vintage of 2008.
Jones saw it coming in January and February, and he made presentations to the Rogue and Umpqua wine industry groups as well as the Oregon Wine Industry Symposium. Sea surface temperatures from the North Pacific and Tropical Ocean systems indicated that the Pacific Northwest could expect a cold and wet spring.
Why? Both the North Pacific (Pacific Decadal Oscillation with its multi-decadal swing) and the short-term Tropical Ocean (El Niņo/La Niņa, a 2- to 5-year swing) were in a cold phase. The La Niņa effect is cool vs. the warmer El Niņo.
Can the vintage recover enough to ripen? Historical data from four stations in Oregon indicates that the growing season should be enough, although far from perfect.
The base temperature for vine growth is 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Growing degree-day (GDD) accumulations are determined for the standard period of April 1 to Oct. 31. The formula is the average of a day's high and low temperatures minus 50. For example, the GDD value for a 24-hour period when the high reached 80 degrees with a low of 50 degrees is 15 units. A climate with 210 such days would give it a GDD season accumulation of 3,150 units.
Jones took the degree-day accumulation values through Aug. 20 and used the station's historical average accumulation from 1971 to 2000 to make the following projections for Oct. 31: McMinnville (2,160), Roseburg (2,740), Medford (2,960) and Milton-Freewater in the Walla Walla Valley (3,100). Jones points out that while those values will be in the lower range for the past eight years, each of the four will surpass the 1971-2000 average.
Jones' analysis is bolstered by the waning La Nina moving to neutral conditions in the Tropical Pacific, predictions borne out by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
While the cool year flies in the face of the warming trends, Jones notes, "We should expect variability in the system, even cool years during a warm period."
Trials and tribulations
While Simon made wine for Chateau Ste. Michelle from 1977 to 1984, renowned German viticulturalist Helmut Becker collaborated on trials in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley.
The Becker Project tested 60 varieties of vinifera grapes throughout the Okanagan Valley near Kelowna, Summerland and the Black Sage Bench. Research and results pointed to whites - Auxerrois, Ehrenfelser, Pinot Blanc and Riesling - as the future of vinifera in the Okanagan Valley.
The Osoyoos Indian Band went ahead and planted 100 acres to three varieties - all white.
"At that time, everyone knew it would be suicide to plant something like Merlot," Gehringer said. "Now, Syrah is doing quite well. And some people are getting pretty cocky because they are even planting Zinfandel."
Gehringer, who grew up in the Okanagan Valley's Golden Mile, began planting the family's 45-acre estate in 1981. Much of their program focuses on Germanic whites, however they've planted Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon in their younger DryRock Vineyard.
"We've moved to Bordeaux varieties in the DryRock because the climate change allowed us to do it," he said. "I grew up here, so I've always been pessimistic about the climate, but I've been wrong all the way."
Jones launched a similar project in Southern Oregon in 2003. The same nine varieties are planted in 28 vineyards, spanning Ashland, Cave Junction and Elkton. He visits each site at least twice a year and produces year-end reports that are shared throughout the industry.
"I collect data on temperature, plant phenology and fruit composition during ripening and at harvest," Jones said. "Our goal is to understand suitability, know the range of fruit composition, predict plant growth, and help with yield forecasting by understanding site and vintage climate differences."
One of the participants is his father, Dr. Earl Jones of Abacela Vineyards & Winery in Roseburg.
"It's fun to drive a row and see the variability," Earl Jones said. "And since the nine varieties in the trial are each own-rooted, you learn something in that regard because most of us are planted on grafted rootstock. So we get to see what the vine does in its natural state."
While his father has become famous for award-winning results with different varieties, Greg Jones knows others don't want to experiment.
"Frankly, my whole goal is for there to be much less trial and error and for people being more successful," Jones said.
Changing viticulture
Those Chiffon margarine commercials of the 1970s warned, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature."
Viticulturalists, though, continue to develop tricks of their trade to exact the most from each vintage.
Lessons learned - particularly clonal selection and canopy management - over the years paid off, particular during the 2005 vintage for Pinot Noir producers in the Willamette Valley.
"We're on rootstocks that actually push the maturity process up a bit," said Lynn Penner-Ash, winemaker at Penner-Ash Wine Cellars near Newberg, Ore. "We've also changed our philosophy on thinning. We go in and thin much earlier than we did in 1995.
"It used to be in Oregon that you'd pull an entire strip of leaves and see bare fruit hanging there. We've gone to what I call a more mottled, umbrella look," she continued. "Every cluster still has a leaf shadowing it, but there's still enough leaf-pulling taking place to allow air flow to keep your clusters from getting too wet. So when you have rainy days, the clusters dry out very, very quickly."
It wasn't that long ago when winemakers and grape growers didn't work in concert as much. Farmers traditionally correlate larger yields to more money. However, crops of Pinot Noir allowed to surpass 2 tons per acre often won't reach the ripeness levels sought by many 21st century winemakers.
"We were not tying quality to yields as definitively as now," Simon said. "In the '80s, there were some pretty lean wines."
Now, a growing number of wineries pay the growers based on quality rather than quantity, and wineries contract with vineyard owners for particular blocks within a site. Winemakers visit the vineyards and collaborate with the vineyard managers. Targets are established for flavor profiles involving sugar and acid levels.
Stillwater Creek Vineyard, which overlooks Royal City, is viewed by many regional winemakers as one of Washington's premier vineyards. Mike and Winnie Alberg manage the 9-year-old site in the Frenchman Hills. They grow for 25 wineries under individual long-term contracts.
"Winemakers request fewer tons per acre in order to produce higher- quality wine, so the price per acre is set where we feel we can afford to farm the grapes and still provide the individual canopy management desires for each of our ultra premium wine grape customers," Winnie Alberg said. "Each winery is allocated the same rows year after year, so the winemakers are able to fine-tune their grape-growing targets each year once they see how the wines perform in the barrel."
Research done at Northwest colleges has been critical to the changing face of winemaking. It flourished in Washington under the late Walter Clore at Washington State University's Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center in Prosser.
"We just learned along with the rest of the industry," Simon said. "We're constantly dialing in the irrigation, and that's been one of the biggest things. Another one is canopy management. Everyone used to do the sprawl thing. We've gotten a lot of help over the years from research done at WSU-IAREC from Sara Spayd, and now Markus Keller."
Idaho turned to Australia for advice at the suggestion of Bitner, who served for years as acting director of the Idaho Wine and Grape Growers Commission.
"Fifteen years ago, we had Richard Smart, the famous Australian wine expert, visit us," Bitner recalled. "He got us away from the big, sprawling vines and toward VSP (vertical shoot positioning). That really turned it around for red grapes in Idaho. For the most part, we've just been tweaking things ever since."
Longer growing seasons allow for larger crops, more wine and less alcohol. Irrigation, canopy and thinning of grape clusters aren't the only factors involved in higher yields.
It actually starts with the planting of the vines. Traditional spacing often led to 10-foot rows with 6 feet separating each plant.
"When we planted in 1981, we did 10 by 6 spacing, which meant 720 plants per acre," Bitner said. "My tonnage is about 41⁄2 tons per acre of Riesling and 41⁄2 tons of Chardonnay. If I had to do it over, I'd plant 9 by 6 or 8 by 6 because people who did now are getting seven tons per acre."
At Stillwater Creek, the Albergs started with 8 by 5, which equals 1,089 plants per acre.
"In some of the newer plantings, we've gone 8 by 4, which is 1,361 plants per acre," she said. "In the 8 by 4 blocks, the vines are fantastic."
In the Okanagan Valley, Gehringer points out that 7 by 31⁄2 spacing is common, resulting in 1,775 plants per acre.
However, south of the town of Okanagan Falls, Blue Mountain Vineyard and Cellars has taken high-density plantings to the historic French level of 4 by 4. That's 4,000 vines per acre.
And then there are examples of extreme viticulture performed by some of the most highly regarded winemakers and growers in the Northwest.
On Vancouver Island, respected wineries such as Alderlea and Venturi-Schulze have achieved remarkable success by placing tents over their Pinot Noir grapes to create a miniature greenhouse effect.
And ironically, while folks in the Okanagan Valley no longer feel the need to bury canes, there's a throwback practice occurring in the Walla Walla Valley. Cult winemakers Christopher Baron at Cayuse and Chris Figgins at Leonetti are among those who bury one cane from each plant after harvest. It's a back-breaking and costly insurance policy in the face of the killing freeze that wiped out more than 80 percent of the valley's 2004 vintage.
The big worry: Water, and when
Although vinifera grapes use about a quarter of the water of many orchard crops, not much - other than dry-land wheat - would grow in Eastern Washington without irrigation.
Drip irrigation, applied in deficit amounts at times in order to stress the vines, is the reason sites such as Chateau Ste. Michelle's Cold Creek Vineyard, north of the Yakima Valley, thrive despite a paltry 5 inches of annual precipitation.
But in Jones' mind, the major threat posed by global climate change is arguably the most important factor in the world - water.
"I just came back from Australia, and 10 years of drought there will change everybody's perception," Jones said. "If you went to people in Eastern Washington or here in the Rogue Valley and said to them, 'You only have 20 percent of your allocation,' people would be hurt."
In the Willamette Valley, untimely rain rather than irrigation most often is the worry. However, climatologists such as Jones foresee a disturbing scenario that will affect nearly anyone who relies on irrigated crops.
"Most of our projections are saying that we will get more rain than we will snow, and the snow levels will go up higher in elevation," Jones said. "What that typically means is that it moves the water delivery to earlier in the year, and that earliness will put the bulk of our water resources at the time when we don't need it.
"That could be a real problem," Jones continued. "We really need to assess our future water availability and use in the western United States."
Construction of more reservoirs might be one angle to consider, Jones said. An example is the proposed Black Rock Reservoir east of Yakima, Wash., however the issues go beyond funding as legislators, irrigators, farmers, environmentalists and tribal leaders are at odds.
"We need the snowpack to support the crops," Simon said. "I haven't studied the Black Rock project closely enough. Maybe it makes sense, but obviously there is still a lot of room for water conservation, and I would hope that would be the first stage."
The future
Bitner himself travels the world for business as a scientist. He's one of the world's foremost bee biologists, and much of his research takes place in Australia.
"Jones and (wine writer) Dan Berger talk so much about cool-climate Rieslings and that these regions are where people in the wine industry should be looking at going to," Bitner said. "And when I read Jones' papers, I see where he's coming from. It's a hot topic right now. I've been telling the Idaho Tourism Board that it may not be all about skiing here in the next 15-20 years. Maybe it will be wine country. I may not live to see it, though."
Kathy Charlton, owner of Olympic Cellars Winery in Port Angeles, Wash., sought answers and ideas not only for herself, but also her neighbors.
In 2005, Charlton and more than 50 other entities in the North Olympic Peninsula region paid $15,000 for a climate and lanscape suitability study performed by Jones. It turned out to be an exciting project for Jones, who presented his findings May 7, 2007, at Port Angeles City Hall.
"Here's something to think about," Jones offered. "If the climates of the Willamette Valley of 1960s and '70s are what they are now, where are those (future prime spots) today? The climate data show it's up in the Puget Sound region. If you look at the inner parts of the Puget Sound, through the canals and the islands, the climate structure there today is not much different that the Willamette Valley in the '70s and early '80s."
Given the market potential with Seattle so close by, the study done by Jones predicts that warming conditions will mean more vineyards developed using better site selection, better fruit, better wines and new wineries. It adds up to increased tourism and more employment for the Puget Sound.
Another overlooked region in the Northwest, Jones said, is the east side of the Willamette Valley.
"There is a lot of potential for future grown," he said. "There's not much planted there right now, and I think the climate, available land and recognition will come over time."
For Gehringer, he just wants to maintain what he now enjoys.
"I've wondered, 'Do I have to buy a chunk of land farther north to maintain the Germanic qualities of our wines?' " Gehringer said. "But I've learned that daylight/night ratio has more influence on flavor profiles than temperatures. We haven't rattled the Earth's axis yet, so we haven't lost our fruit-flavor profile."
Winners, not whiners
Many who make wine near the 45th parallel and above don't seem to mind. It's akin to the joke postcard that depicts a group of folks - bundled up in winter garb - under the caption of "Montanans for global warming."
Warmer vintages help Northwest winemakers produce the higher-alcohol wines that some wine critics and many consumers favor - for now.
"We're all letting things ripen a little further than we used to," Simon said. "There were some pretty lean wines in the '80s, but style trends are happening at the same time that climate change is. Who knows how long it will take for next real significant style change to happen again?"
Until this year, Pinot Noir producers in the Willamette Valley couldn't release their high-priced wines fast enough. Blame the softening market for their wines not on the rising alcohols, but rather on the recession in the United States.
And with land prices eclipsing $150,000 per acre in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley, growers and winemakers can't afford mistakes on grape varieties, site selection or killing winters such as those of 1968-69 or 1978-79 or 2003-04.
"Climate change is a reality for us," Gehringer said. "A lot of our success in the Okanagan is due to timing. We're just riding a wave, and it's been horseshoes in our pockets all the way."
Ultimately, the consumer is the biggest winner, and count famed German winemaker Ernst Loosen among the victors. He partners with Chateau Ste. Michelle on their Eroica Riesling project in the Columbia Valley, but the Mosel-based vintner no longer is as envious of climate conditions in Washington as he once was.
The proof is in his aging bottles of German Riesling.
"In the older days, we had a lot of vintages that didn't get at all ripe," Loosen said. "I'm not missing a 1984, a 1980, or 1978 or 1974 or 1972, which were damn unripe - stuff you STILL can't drink because it was so high in acidity and so low in ripeness. You'd have potential alcohols of only 6 percent!
"I don't need those vintages anymore," Loosen added. "I'm pretty happy that every year we get our fruit ripe. We get 10 percent alcohol." e
The perfect climate for new career
If you ask Greg Jones, it was a career path ripe for the picking.
And within a decade, this professor of environmental studies at Southern Oregon University in Ashland has grown into one of the planet's leading authorities on all things related to climate's role in viticulture and wine production.
Along the way, Jones, 49, is helping his father - Earl Jones of Abacela Vineyards and Winery in Oregon's Umpqua Valley - and other growers in the Pacific Northwest and beyond because viticulture is the focus of his climate research.
"One of the reasons I came to Southern Oregon is that there was not a lot of research going on for the people here," Greg said.
In 1997, three years after his father and stepmother, Hilda, began planting their vineyard in Roseburg, Jones had completed his graduate work and teaching at the University of Virginia. He was about to accept a position as a professor in climatology at Colgate.
Then, SOU posted an opening that drew more than 100 applicants.
"I thought, 'I've been to Ashland. I know how nice that is. And it's only an hour and half away from where my dad is," he recalled.
As Greg pursued his doctorate at Virginia - which included graduate work at the University of Bordeaux - Earl was a clinical dermatologist practicing in Florida and devoting hours at home searching throughout North America for a suitable climate in which to grow Tempranillo, a Spanish grape variety.
"My dad had already been on a 1 1⁄2-year quest to grow grapes and make wine," he said. "He hadn't found his property, but he had honed into the places he was most interested in. It became increasing evident that the questions my dad was asking me were the types of questions that needed to be answered for everybody."
And a world of opportunity opened up.
"I saw very quickly that people in the wine industry know quite a bit about climate, but almost no climatologists were studying viticulture," Greg said. "It was kind of fortuitous that happened because I could have become a cloud climatologist or studied water relations in the Sahara."
He'd already experienced enough heat in the early days of Abacela. "I remember being there in the HOT summer trying to put these piezometers in the vineyard," Greg said. "We worked together a lot, and today, my dad and I talk virtually every day. It's usually something related to the plant, growing the grapes or the climate."
Jones admits he has critics, those who claim his research would be better served on more serious crops.
"My colleagues do that, and I support them in every way that I can," he said. "My job as a professor and instructor is to bring awareness. If I can somehow study suitability and structure for wine grapes and bring about awareness of a bigger societal issue like climate change, then why not?"
In the classroom, Jones has a reputation as an exacting professor. He's also an engaging presenter and respected researcher who is in constant demand worldwide, raising the profile of Southern Oregon University's environmental studies program.
"I live in small town and walk to work, however I've traveled to virtually every wine region in the world," he said. "I am very, very fortunate that I just happen to be a scientist studying something that's of great interest to others and that absolutely jazzes me! It's a lot of fun."
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