Warming trends may be good for BC’s winemakers… for now

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – B.C.’s winemakers are watching the grape harvest come in and, early in the process, it seems the smoke from another intense wildfire season has not had a significant impact on ripening or taste.

But a leading wine industry researcher suggests Okanagan vintners should be looking ahead, as warming trends leave their mark on the region.

“The trend, overall, is that we have had warmer and longer growing seasons,” says Gregory Jones, chair of wine studies at Linfield College in Oregon.

“Sometimes we forget how cold it was 30 or 40 years ago in the Pacific Northwest, but we have had a run of vintages that have been much more conducive to ripening fruit. The problem is that it is never perfect.”

Jones says growers can have all kinds of issues, from a winter freeze to heat stress and drought in the summer, and they all have different impacts on the grapes.

“You have to adjust or you probably wouldn’t be in business very long,” he tells NEWS 1130.

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But he considers the Okanagan and other areas in B.C. “spectacular wine grape growing regions” that could benefit from warming landscapes.

“Relatively cool climate areas like BC have the ability to produce very special wines because it’s being grown right at the margins of suitability. If you are growing grapes in a really hot region, then you have a tendency to lose some of the elegance and finesse that some of the wines have,” Jones explains.

“But I think the British Columbia region has the ability, with a changing climate, to become more suitable over the long term, while still producing elegant wines.”

But he feels the B.C. grape growing industry needs to work on long term strategies to deal with the impact of climate change such as erosion, fertility, water availability and different diseases and vine pests.

“The last time that I spoke up there, there was a lot of conversation about adaptation and mitigation to help them be in a better situation to adapt,” Jones says.

“As climates change, do you have to look at different ways of growing your grapes, either training or pruning them? Do you have to look at different varieties that can potentially grow?”

He points to the Willamette Valley region in Oregon where some grape growers have started working to produce crops without irrigation, adapting to changing conditions.

“I think we need to understand that there is a lot of variability in the things that impact growing wine grapes. Climates have trended warmer and we have benefited from it in the Pacific Northwest more than we have had detriment, but we have to be cautious because not all climate change is good.”

Jones says there are real issues being seen in some traditional winemaking regions caused by highly variable climate or changes that make them almost unsuitable to grow grapes.

He has a word of caution for local growers: “We are fortunate now, but we need to be ready for the future.”

 – With files from Marcella Bernardo