At this point of 2025, say that Spanish wine is on its way to disaster It cannot surprise Nobody. However, it is inevitable that, reading phrases like that, let’s think it is exaggerating. Soon we examine the data, we see that the coup can become huge.
Two news that is better understood together. The first is from July 25, 2024: The earliest harvest Within Jerez’s framework since there are historical records. That is to say, For more than 130 years. As the winemakers themselves said, They saw that “In July the grape was already at its optimal point (the 10.5º Baumé demanded) and that if we expected more I was going to lose weight and deteriorate.”
The second news is a couple of months later: the production of wine from the United Kingdom has doubled in a very short time and, in fact, the surface planted with vines has increased 75% in the last five years. This is very rare in a place where (despite have vineyards from Roman times and produce commercially since the 60s) the vines have never been good for cold and bad weather.
Both news are the beam and the underside of a huge problem: the huge impact that climate change in the main wine regions of Europe has. And, especially, in Spain.
A global problem that affects us especially. Traditionally, there are two planetary areas indicated for the cultivation of the vine: the one between the 30th and 50th parallels of the northern hemisphere and that located between the 30th and 40th in the south. The problem is that, like The National Institute for Agronomic Research predicted In France, around 2100 those areas will be completely blurred with the double “very warm” days of the historical average.
According to a study published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment In March 2024up to 70% of the current wine -producing regions could face a substantial risk to lose their suitability for viticulture. In that drawer we are.
In Spain, as defends happiness in Herralde, researcher at the Institute for Agrifood Research and Technology of Catalonia, towards the end of the century “the water deficit could reach 200 liters per square meter.” That is, in many wine areas “half of the rainwater that is now available in a year may be missing.”
Things are changing. “I have gone from harvesting to do it in a short sleeve and always looking at the sky. My father does not remember in all his youth or a hail storm and now they come to us in September shattering the harvest and even in spring, sweeping that of that year And the next one, because it takes all the yolks “, explained in Rioja2 Berta Valgañónfarmer and producer of the denomination of qualified origin Rioja.
And when we say that “time is crazy” we are not entirely aware of what it implies. As Olivia García pointed out “In winter it does not snow, (…) in February it is hot and the plants begin to sprout before but the risk of frosts extends to May (…). In spring it hardly rains and summer is totally dry.” The result is that, when “the harvest arrives so hot that the level of sugar and acidity becomes totally unbalanced.”
It is not uncommon. “In a reference period from 1972 to 2005 we have found that, for example, in the Penedès region the increase in average annual temperatures has already reached two and a half degrees,” explained of Herralde in the country.
Estimates are terrifying. At the end of 2022, the Reading University published a report where it was concluded that “a fifth of the United Kingdom could have adequate climatic conditions to cultivate Chardonnay grapes in 2050”. But instead, “according to A study conducted over 15 years In vineyards from different areas of the world, 90% of current cultivation areas will not be suitable within a few years. “
To this we must add the problem of water. Not only is water missing at very important specific moments, but As Jordi Pastor defendedmost winemakers already grow with an amount of water lower than optimal.
As with the olive tree, the agricultural strategy is to migrate production towards irrigation and, in fact, while 20 years ago the percentages of irrigated vine Today I already touched 50%.
And yet, the situation is very complicated … With the available data of the denominations of Catalan origin, we can say that sprouting and flowering are being advanced around 11 days compared to half a century ago. But in addition, “the main cycles of the vineyard (sprouting, flowering, curd, envre and harvest) are faster, those phases are shorter.” Is What we saw too Within the framework of Jerez and In the rest of wine areas from Spain, Greece, Italy or southern California. France, much less affected, too He has seen him The ears to the wolf.
… that goes beyond the future. This April, Freixenet presented an ERTE for 615 workers for drought. As they explainedit was an “exercise of responsibility” to “guarantee the operability of the business” in the face of grapes due to the lack of rain. Regardless of the details of that specific case, the truth is that the labor, financial and industrial ramifications The problem is here. And he will not go anywhere.
How do we do the wine? “Spain will be a little suitable place to make wine, which means that wine production will not become impossible, but it will be increasingly difficult according to the degree of global warming,” defended Sébastien Zitoresearcher at the Institute of Vineyard Sciences and Burgundy Wine. He is right.
Therefore, the world of wine Work already in a hurry for looking for solutions. And the truth is that the struggle to maintain profitability is not the only problem. After all, this environmental pressure also attacks the personality itself of the wines. Can Spanish wines survive while being themselves on the way?
Image | Trent Erwin | Climate Resanalyzer