The Golden State.

Despite having an extremely wet winter, the golden hills that California is famous for have arrived for the season, albeit a little later in the year than is the norm.  Them thar golden hills are indeed one of the reasons why California is nicknamed The Golden State.
At breakfast this morning, I was reading a piece in last week's 'On Wine' section of The Napa Valley Register about climate change.  The headline of the article read: Trump administration and the wine industry.  Under the guise of a business related feature, the column contained a comment from some Harvard professor or other who said, "that the land suitable for grapegrowing could shrink 23 to 75 percent by 2050."  I am assuming the good professor, who was a panelist at the recent Vinexpo in Bordeaux, is referring to existing grape-growing regions and the fact that they could, in the next thirty-odd years, be rendered un-replantable due to global warming.
On the other hand, if the Ivy League scholar is alluding to the planting of new vineyards I'd posit that the Napa Valley has already reached its saturation point, or is very close to it, so it's a moot point.  There isn't much available land left; there is no new valley floor being created and there is an on-again, off-again moratorium on hillside vineyards.  No land, no planting, no problem.  Besides, not every available postage stamp-sized piece of land should have grapes planted on it.  Napa needs more housing, open spaces, expanded infrastructure and services for its existing residents.  And, of course, dog parks.
And, speaking of dog parks, here is Vinodog 2 surveying her gilded, off-lead doggy-domain which, incidentally, is surrounded by vineyards that until about 14 or 15 years ago used to be cattle grazing land.  Progress due to a shift to a preferable, and more profitable, industry?  Or a land-use change due to "emissions of heat-trapping gases from fossil-fuel burning...?" Vinodog 2's dog park, and the vineyards surrounding it, may well revert to a more pastoral use of the land, oh, in about 30 years from now.

What ifs.

The photograph on this Vinsanity post is meant to illustrate how I imagine our great-great-grandchildren will enjoy their Napa Valley wines.  I envision a future where Riedel may have been forced out of the glassware business because all wine will be being quaffed from coffee mugs, (in this case, a rather fetching Robert Mondavi mug - adorned with Bob's mug).  I came to this rather alarming conclusion after reading a stunningly unscientific article in the January issue of Scientific American, 'Will We Still Enjoy Pinot Noir?'  The article is written by Chicken Licken, sorry, I mean, Kimberly A. Nicholas who is an associate professor of sustainability science at Lund University in Sweden.  Ja, that Sweden.
Ms. Nicholas writes to educate us all about climate change and its effect on wine-growing regions around the globe and seems to be on a crusade to save the wine styles that we know and enjoy today for the benefit of the palates of future generations.  I dunno, personally, I am glad that the Bordeaux wines that I can enjoy today do not resemble any of the wines being produced in that particular wine region during the (approximate) 300 year period when Bordeaux was owned by England: they were most likely horrid by today's standards.
Wine was not being produced commercially in the Napa Valley 200 years ago (as it was in most European countries), and even if it had been would it have tasted like, oh, let's say the Saddelback, 2011 Merlot (Oakville AVA) that I am going to drink with dinner tonight?  I doubt it.  There are a lot of variables that have contributed to the evolution of wine production through the centuries, not just heat.  Obviously, temperature brings out different characteristics in grapes (ergo, wine), but focusing only on the influence of heat ignores the importance of things like soil composition and topography, etc.
There is no real research documented in this article other than a graphic which cites the work of Lee Hannah (of Conservation International) and Patrick Roehrdanz (of U.C. Santa Barbara), which suggests that climate change will force the wine industry to "migrate" to survive.  A sidebar claims, "California growers in Napa and Sonoma are experimenting with ways to compensate for climate change, preferable to moving to new locations."  How preposterous (and alarmist) is that statement?  I personally know a few Napa growers and not one of them has mentioned moving their operations elsewhere.  I don't know about Messrs. Hannah and Roehrdanz, but Ms. Nicholas hails from Sonoma, so I am assuming that she has noticed, first hand, the very current lack of plantable acreage in the Napa Valley and is aware that, basically, there is a moratorium on hillside planting.  Oh, and there is a tiny paragraph that mentions some sunlight analyses that Ms. Nicholas conducted with her "colleagues at Stanford and U.C. Davis," which showed "that for every 1 percent increase in light, there was a more than 2 percent decrease in desirable tannins and anthocyanins." Not one "desirable tannin" (and its subsequent disappearance) was named in the article.  Well, there goes the neighbourhood...and the palates of the wine drinkers of 2080!  (Wonder where Ms. Nicholas bought her crystal ball, because I want one.)
There is one thing in the article, right near the end, perhaps as a meagre attempt at objectivity, that I agree with, but it is nothing Ms. Nicholas proposed.  Jason Kesner, of Kesner Wines (producers of mainly Chardonnay and Pinot Noir), believes "that the most outstanding vineyards in the region may still be generations away."  How dare he be so optimistic and so audaciously uninformed!  But I happen to agree with him.  With new techniques, equipment, plant materials, philosophies and, yes, even conservation, I think Napa wine-growing has a rosy future.  The Antinori's, the Italian wine dynasty, who began making wine in the really toasty middle ages, have even invested in Napa's future.  I am not filled with doom and gloom.
Nobody knows whether or not global warming is fact or fiction, man-made or a natural and cyclical phenomenon and to pretend (with no facts to back up that pretense, especially in fact-free articles like the one in Scientific American), is just irresponsible and journalistic-sensationalism at its worst.
My own empirical data suggests, nay screams, that after about a decade of trying to get Cabernet sauvignon, clone 4, ripened in chilly-Coombsville I am not likely to achieve a desirable level of ripeness in 2015 either.  Not this year, not 100 years from now.  Sigh.  I should have planted clone 169, and that's a fact.

Global warming?

The Napa Valley, once again, finds itself featured in the media as the poster child for the potential results of climate change. Perhaps because wine grapes, more than any other crop, are sensitive to vintage temperatures (and climatic conditions in general), and because people are often drawn to the romance of vineyards, and wine production, there is more interest in the farming of wine grapes than say turnips, or spuds.
A recent 4 year study led by Dr. Daniel R. Cayan, of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, found that average temperatures had only increased by a degree or two (Fahrenheit) over the past several decades, mainly affecting overnight temps rather than daytime temps. That really doesn't surprise me, especially seeing as it is possible for the diurnal/nocturnal temperature differential in Napa to be as much as 40 to 50 degrees.
Vinoland's Cabernet sauvignon vines are approximately 80% through veraison. Due to persistent cool temperatures (our second below average summer in a row), it's hard to tell if my pruning experiment this year has had any impact on the maturation of the Cabernet vines. With possibly two full months still until harvest I can only cross my fingers and hope for warm, dry weather during September and through October.
Whilst I do understand that the San Francisco Bay Area is well known for it's diverse micro climates - and it is indeed the cool marine layer that aids in quality grape production in this part of the world - I long for more typical summer temps...it is California after all.
Global warming is awfully cold!