Global warming pushes wine growing further north

Yahoo

28-01-2025

North western Germany's Teutoburg Forest is famous as the scene of one of the Roman Empire's greatest military disasters, when a whole army was slaughtered by the local tribes.
It's not so well known for its vineyards, but that could also soon be a thing of the past.
Jan Brinkmann grows grapes in Bad Iburg near Osnabrück. "We have the first two authorised steep slopes in the whole of Lower Saxony here," he says. The farm has existed under the name Brinkmann for 750 years. However, the winery was only founded in 2018, when Jan switched over from from pig farming.
This became possible when the EU changed its laws to permit the planting of new vineyards. Since then, around 300 hectares of new vineyards have been allowed in Germany every year, and commercial viticulture has been permitted in Lower Saxony since 2016.
Jan Brinkmann's father heard about this on the radio, and they leapt into action. "Now we can be the first for once," the two farmers thought to themselves. it's a big challenge for Brinkmann, because he didn't grow up even drinking wine, let alone making it. "We had beer and cola. You might have drunk wine at a wedding."
Ernst Büscher from the German Wine Institute (DWI) doesn't find it all that unusual that former livestock farms or mixed farms have been turned into wineries. "In the 1960s, viticulture wasn't very widespread in Rheinhessen or the Southern Palatinate either." Today, both regions are an integral part of the European wine landscape.
'It's simply getting warmer'
Whether it makes sense to plant vineyards is, of course, not just a question of the legal situation. The climate is ideal in the northern hemisphere from 30 to 50 degrees latitude. Jan Brinkmann's land lies on the 52nd parallel, beyond the northern edge of the zone.
"But that's where climate change comes into play," says Ernst Büscher. "It's simply getting warmer. In the south-west of Germany in particular, we have an increase in the average temperature of 1.5 degrees from April to October. That's a lot."
Red wine grapes, for example, now ripen better in Germany than they used to, making viticulture in northern regions more attractive.
Damien Briard from the Château d'Annevoie domain in Belgium learnt winemaking in France, including Bordeaux and Champagne. He is certain the climate has improved. "There were never summers with as much sunshine as now in Belgium when I was a child," he says.
This makes it easier to make wine in Belgum, "but climate change also scares me, of course," he says. And he sympathises with winemaker friends from Montpellier in the south of France, an area now suffering from severe droughts.
English sparkling wine
Champagne, one of the northern-most wine-growing regions in Europe, is also being affected by global warming. It lies between 48 and 49 degrees latitude, just within the official wine-growing zone. The cool continental climate usually produces grapes with a low sugar and high acid content - ideal for sparkling wine production.
While warmer summers threaten the typical Champagne style, a lot can be influenced in the vineyard, for example by the way the plants are defoliated. Nevertheless, investors from Champagne began to look for new wine-growing regions. "They were looking for soils similar to those in Champagne, but with cooler and more moderate conditions," says Manfred Stoll, a professor at Geisenheim University in Germany.
They found what they were looking for in the south of England. Champagne producers such as Taittinger now grow the typical Champagne grape varieties there. The wines will never be called Champagne, as this is a protected designation of origin, but England's sparkling wines already enjoy an excellent reputation.
More sustainable grape varieties
However, classic grape types cannot always be used in Nordic viticulture, says Stoll. Instead, newer varieties that are less susceptible to fungal diseases such as powdery mildew and downy mildew are planted. "They require less plant protection," explains Stoll. This is not only more sustainable, but also means less work for the winery.
For Jan Brinkmann from Lower Saxony, who has long grown fodder for his pigs on his land, these were convincing arguments. He planted the white fungus resistant Helios and Solaris grapes. It's a long-term commitment, as vines are planted for several decades. He says he only realised later that the varieties he chose have a catch. "Nobody goes to a wine festival and asks for Helios."
But Ernst Büscher from the DWI believes that this may change in the future and also sees an opportunity for fungal resistant wines. "Perhaps one day they will have a competitive advantage," he says. "Younger people in particular are paying more and more attention to sustainability."