The Merlot Grape Is Feeling the Heat

摘要

This summer was a scorcher in France, the second-hottest on record. For Bordeaux wine growers, the searing temperatures were the latest reminder that global warming threatens to upend their world. In a vineyard on the outskirts of the world's wine capital, Agnes Destrac, a researcher with France's National Institute for Agricultural Research, points to shriveled merlot grapes, left on the vine well past harvest time to simulate the effects of rising temperatures. "You have to keep in mind the limits of the grape," Destrac says. "We're not going to keep merlot no matter what." A few years ago, such talk would have been heresy. Merlot vines cover more than 60 percent of Bordeaux's red wine area. But now Destrac is at the forefront of a race to hunt for grapes that can better withstand heat and help Bordeaux's $4.2 billion wine industry adapt to a hotter world. Merlot is Bordeaux's earliest-ripening red wine grape, and its character would change if a warmer climate meant fully ripe grapes in August rather than September, says Bernard Farges, a winemaker and president of the Interprofessional Council of Bordeaux Wine, the local wine board. Overripe merlot "loses its class and freshness," becoming "a fruit bomb with no hard edges," oenophile Clive Coates wrote in his 2004 book, The Wines of Bordeaux.