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Global Warming and GMO Complicate the Future

It is slowly being grasped by the wine community that the most disruptive event in agriculture has been taking place as the giant sleeps. The startling revelation by the world scientific community that Napa lives no more as a distinguished wine area and, tragically, the same with so many other once premium wine regions on the Central Coast of California that are located too far from the Pacific.

In fact, because of Global Warming and with a dooming assist from excessive and crowded GMO wine-grape plantings, there is left only a slice of classic Mediterranean Climate premium wine land, hugging the western ocean. This sliver of land fortunately retains the ability to grow premium wine grapes and create the world’s superior wines.

It was on a sun-glowing summer afternoon that this realization came as a shockwave to those assembled at the grand hilltop barn in a prominent Paso Robles westside winery. Brent Hallock, an esteemed professor from Cal Poly University in San Luis Obispo, addressed an audience of 300 winemakers, viticulturalists, and oenological enthusiasts and delivered the message with the impact of a thunderbolt.

Professor Hallock explained with meticulous science that due to the reevaluation of grape-growing areas in light of Global Warming, the consensus of earth and climate scientists, including the National Academy of Science and Union of Concerned Scientists, is that the Westside of Paso Robles, with its unique topography and close proximity to the western sea, could very well be the only Premium Wine Growing Region in California.

That statement brought a stunned silence to the crowd as the professor continued his presentation on that hilltop, now several years ago. Napa, he pointed out as an example, because of Global Warming, has fallen out of a premium winegrowing area based on fast-developing climatological negatives.

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Napa's average temperature has risen above the Mediterranean Climate determinative average high, and humidity has increased in tandem. Humidity caused by Global Warning has shot-up substantially in France and most of the Mediterranean countries, and the mildew, rot, and other disease challenges have heightened substantially.

This dramatic change in viticulture attacked all the Mediterranean Climate countries. The shrinking of the special climate conducive to premium grape growing in those regions has been unnerving and unyielding.

Events occurring in Napa and Sonoma will be ultimately commercially transformational and often horrific as we saw in the wild fires very recently.

According to projections and actual changes taking place, quality wine grapes could only be grown in a strip of land along the coast of California. The band lies about ten miles from the Pacific. Vineyards outside of the band will suffer as is now the case in Napa. Napa is approximately 40 miles from the ocean, Santa Ynez is around 20. The professor didn’t stress Global Warming as it was not at that time a subject on everyone’s lips, but his presentation was centered on Climate Change and its rapidity never before experienced in civilization.

Carmody McKnight, as example, is one of the closest vineyards to the Pacific. Six miles from the sea, but interestingly not adversely affected by the proximity with downsides such as excessive fog and moisture, limited sunlight, shallow temperature swings because it is located on high-elevation hillsides with topographical protection by way of the dominating Big Sur Mountain Range.

The Carmody McKnight vineyard is ideally positioned to prosper in the future centuries and as far as the science eye can see.

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The momentous viticulture and earth studies the Professor shared that day began to slowly emerge, even though most in the wine world were in constant denial. But that is changing as even the most recent headlines indicate, as seen in wine-searcher:

Climate Change: The Death of Terroir?

© E. M. Wolkovich | As the world heats up, a grape slowly shrivels.

The climate debate is pretty much over for the wine industry, and the focus has shifted to mitigation. By James Lawrence | Posted Monday, 04-Dec-2017

GMO kicks in. Climate Warming exacerbates mildew, botrytis, rot and other unrelenting infestations in Napa and many other California wine regions as well as the Mediterranean countries. But this may be due also to the genetic modified rootstock that overruns these once premium wine areas.

The grafted mutated rootstock's ultimate lack of resistance to blight is more and more documented and a threatening reality on many fronts.

To combat this fast-growing peril because of Global Warming and the invasion of GMO plantings, vineyard managers are relying more and more on a frightening assortment of pesticides/fungicides which have now unleashed one of the most unnerving threats to ever face vineyards and wine as well as those farming the vineyards and living on them.

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Heavy fungicide use not only poses one of the most serious human health problems, but it affects the taste and overall perception of wine and overwhelms natural flavors if those attributes even exist.

The vine diseases red blotch and leaf roll, in particular, have been plaguing Napa and Sonoma causing vines to last only a few years before being pulled up and destroyed. As reported by UCCE at UC Davis there has also been a huge surge in the vine-killing illness Pierce's disease.

Viticultural experts in both Napa and Sonoma counties report "an alarming increase in the number of vines being destroyed due to Pierce's last year, including in areas where they haven't seen the disease before, raising anxiety levels (and financial pain) among local vintners."

"Now every 10 years you have to pull everything out and replant,” says the eminent Chuck Wagner, who owns Caymus Vineyards in Rutherford. He describes how this excessive replanting hurts a winery’s economics and is problematic from an environmental standpoint. It also robs a vine of its legacy: "farewell, old-vine cuvees."

This worry is also voiced by the leading Napa grower Andy Beckstoffer's General Manager, Dave Michul, stating that such a short life span is now typical. "In Napa a vineyard barely lasts a few years before it needs replanting."

Events are changing so fast that more recently in Wines & Vines the headline shocks. In the lead paragraphs of the article, Brittany Pederson, a viticulturist as well as the co-chair of the Grapegrowers’ committee, said more growers are moving to 10-and even five-year replant schedules. “Definitely the virus and disease pressure have been a huge portion of that,” she said.

Five years?! By the time fruit starts to grow on the vine in Napa, around the third to fourth year, the vine is yanked. This is the end of any quality wine production in Napa or really any wine growing itself without disastrous economics. A vine can last 100 years and for centuries wine quality was connected to vine age ~ 30 to 40 or more years being the ideal.

The Mediterranean Climate is scarce and agriculturally precious. But utterly necessary to successfully grow the premium grape ~ vitis vinifera ~ for the finest wines, a viticultural fact that has been acknowledged for centuries.

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The Mediterranean Climate, with its unique climatological characteristics, is primarily found on the western sides of continents. The regions border the Mediterranean Sea itself, areas of California, coastal Chile, the western Cape of South Africa, South West Australia and the region of South Australia also facing westwards. Rare is an understatement. As the world climate changes, particularly due to Global Warming, the classic Mediterranean Climate areas, prospering for thousands of years, are now drastically and rapidly disrupted and severely diminished.

As seen on the map, the areas in red are where the classic Mediterranean Climate existed and now it is only a fraction. Because of Global Warming the Mediterranean Climate has now nearly disappeared and would hardly be visible on the map at all.

The Mediterranean Climate as known for Centuries.

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The shrinking Mediterranean Climate.

Now the Napa Fires and More

Global warming raises average temperature levels and causes more humidity and other problems difficult to control, such as flooding and wild fires.

Global Warming and the excessive wind also make devastating wild fires more likely and uncontrollable and another potential danger for areas like Napa with little that can be done to prevent them especially because most of Napa exists on flat valley floors where winds becomes excessive.

“We have to just assume that these (Napa) fires are going to be more intense and more frequent,” as just reported in Scientific American by Ethan Elkind, director of the Climate Program at the University of California, Berkeley, Center for Law, Energy & the Environment.

And in the San Francisco Chronicle: according to studies by LeRoy Westerling, co-director of the Center for Climate Communication at UC Merced, “Northern California and the Sierra Nevada will have to deal with hotter, more frequent fires in the future as a result of global warming.”

Daily Mail: “California governor Jerry Brown, blames devastating wildfires on climate change and says deadly winter infernos will be 'the new normal'” “Climate change mean California faces a 'new reality' where lives and property are continually threatened by fire, at a cost of billions of dollars.”

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In U.S. News Huffington Report: California’s Wildfires This Year Have Been Breaking Records. The state has experienced the biggest and deadliest fires in its history this year. Experts say climate change has contributed to extreme weather patterns in California.

With the immense challenges of Global Warming and crowded GMO plants, as well as dangerously excessive fungicides, toxic petro-fertilizers, and the added carcinogenic chemicals in the wine, the disaster should have been foreseen. Now we need a model of viticultural survival. Carmody McKnight, situated in a Global Warming free-zone, is that model for natural winemaking with none of the threats existing in Napa.

Had the Carmody McKnight model been followed, some of the disaster would have been mitigated. Carmody McKnight is the exemplar of true sustainability, due to some measure because of non-GMO grape planting, and a nature-abiding understanding of how the correct topography is vital to help face this growing global threat in areas like Naps, a threat that has no precedent in modern agriculture.

UFC Que Choisir found that in France as many as "14 different fungicides in a single bottle of wine (that would mean the application of toxic fungicides were applied virtually around the clock; not much different in Napa and other areas of the world). The report immediately established a connection between fungicides in wine and a raft of diseases including cancer and Parkinson’s disease."

GMO grapes which overrun Napa, Sonoma, Santa Barbara and much of California, as well as the Mediterranean countries that produced once-fine wines, necessitate a flood of virulent fungicides which end up in the grape skins and subsequently in the wine.

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The Westside of Paso Robles may be one of the few places where non-GMO premium grapes can be sustained. This is because of the perfect microclimates and rich nutrient soils, especially limestone, defending against diseases now plaguing most of the wine world, while providing authentic flavors not requiring added chemicals and new oak barrels with their own toxic problems.

The serious warnings by UFC Que Choisir, the most prominent consumer group in Europe, must not be ignored. Almost every single bottle of wine tested was carcinogenic.

Drinking most wine from Europe and California is now difficult to recommend, whereas natural, non-GMO wine without fungicide use in the vineyard, as remarkably the case with Carmody McKnight, is the healthiest food anyone can put into the body.

In the case of Carmody McKnight, the extraordinary health benefits are a proven fact as a result of major world studies and countless soil testing and analysis with the most sophisticated of testing equipment.

It would be a necessity now for land developers, real estate companies and all funding sources that buyers be warned of these dramatic changes that are redefining viable agriculture and viticulture and adversely affecting our environment and commerce.

It is also imperative that even with climate change that vine farming practices be fully understood in light of Global Warming and that GMO vines and the crowding of these plants be avoided if not ended. The onslaught of these vine diseases starts with the reality that Napa and many of these regions have poor and mostly unproductive soils coupled with ubiquitous GMO mutant vines in vineyards that lineup side to side (with no disease barrier) for miles and miles.

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The above charts, prepared by the Soil Science Department of Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and UC Davis, contrast mineral-derived nutrients in grapes found in the Carmody McKnight Vineyards (top chart) with the most nutrients previously found in grapes, depicted in the bottom chart (Winkler et al, 1974) revealing depleted soils typical in Napa and a majority of farming areas.

Considering the fact that Carmody McKnight has never fertilized its soils in over 40 years these results were considered near miraculous.

The Carmody McKnight soil analysis was primarily provided by Dan Rooney, President of Earth IT, and a team from his company. Over a period of months, Earth IT conducted beta-testing with their patented electromagnetic noninvasive tools and penetrometers capable of rapidly estimating soil compaction, texture, color, moisture, resistivity, organic matter content, soil depth and even in-situ imagery. They gathered information with this technology to an extent never before achievable. The many vineyard locations were then investigated with a penetrometer system linked to specialized newly-developed computer software systems employing the most advanced analytical capabilities.

The results were statistically evaluated to interpret comprehensive topography and electromagnetic conditions resulting in the production of the most exhaustive and prolific vineyard soil maps ever produced.

The nutrient spikes in the bottom chart are due to the application of petrochemical fertilization, essential for basic growth. Petro-chemical fertilization has become a farming and health menace and a contributor to Global Warming.

Also, topography is vitally important and flat valleys like Napa should be avoided for grape vines, as historically the case in France and other countries. The same with the inter-connection of one vineyard to the next for endless miles with no barriers for disease pressures, flooding, and wild fires.

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One of the many maps derived from "Climate Change, Wine, and Conservation," the most significant, comprehensive, and far-reaching global studies of wine production and climate change. Contributing scientists and scientific institutions are from the major countries and scientific organizations. It is delineated on the map that future suitability adjoins the Pacific and close to it, and most of the current areas such as Napa, in red, suitability is disappearing.