British Expats - Italy alarmed at early harvest of wine grapes

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Italy alarmed at early harvest of wine grapes

" Even my father is saying: 'What the hell has gone wrong with the world?'"

Blame the anti-global warming idiots

****

Italy alarmed at early harvest of wine grapes
Chicago Tribune
August 26, 2007

GROTTAFERRATA, Italy - Patrizia Filippi has no degree in meteorology or any
idea how to calculate what scientists call extreme weather change. But the
43-year-old grape picker has been working this area's silky, volcanic soil
for nearly three decades, and she knows what she sees:

This is an early harvest unlike anything that Italy, or any generation in
her family, has experienced in memory.

"I'm a bit scared," Filippi said, pulling and snipping a thick, juicy bunch
of white grapes from the vines of the Castel de Paolis estate. "I've never
picked grapes this early in the season. We're used to picking grapes in
October. That's when the grape festivals are. Even my father is saying:
'What the hell has gone wrong with the world?'"

The grapes in Lazio region, around Rome, are ripening at least 20 days
early. In the northern region of Veneto and Trentino, the home of refreshing
Prosecco and other sparkling wines, the grapes were ready to pick in early
August, three to four weeks early. In Sicily, there is a rush on now to find
seasonal workers: Red grapes are primed to ripen in early September, a month
early.

It might be a simple climate quirk or even a cyclical pattern, but some
growers across this lush agricultural region are ready to believe that
global warming is taking a toll on their traditions and business. Two heat
waves across southeastern Europe in June and July broke all records;
Bulgaria suffered the worst, with the temperature climbing to 113 degrees
Fahrenheit on July 23.

Temperatures in Italy, Spain and Greece also soared, with utilities and
transportation links suffering disruptions and delays from the heat. In
Italy, the summer of 2007, a strong hot season with little rain, comes
almost too close for comfort with the deadly memory of 2003.

That summer was brutal: Unrelenting high temperatures that August, many
days over 100 degrees, left thousands of people dead, particularly the
vulnerable elderly, across Europe.

For the Santarelli family, the owners of the rambling fields of Castel de
Paolis that bear fruit for Frascati, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc wines,
this year's early harvest has its surprises.

Fabrizio Santarelli, who oversees the estate, had to leave his family
vacation in southern Italy to ensure smooth work on the first days of
harvest. Still, he and his father, Giulio, were delighted by their bounty.
The grape harvest is smaller, but the quality of the fruit is rich, more
flavorful and sweet, they said.

The heat hastened the ripening, and the lack of rain intensified the
natural sugars, they said. The constant sea breeze in these hills helped
modulate the temperature. The wines of 2007, and the wine from this land,
which rests within the ancient seven hills of Rome, will be special.

"We haven't had rain since the middle of May, and all that heat went into
the grape," said Fabrizio, who at age 44 is among the new generation of
winemakers in the Lazio region. "The bunches are arriving very ripe and very
clean. The quality is very high."

Castel de Paolis, a vineyard for generations that exports about 5 percent
of its wines to the United States, is among 30 vintners in the Lazio region
looking for ways to improve and refine its table wines. In 1991, Fabrizio
persuaded his father to pull up acres of old vines and plant grape varieties
from France alongside the long-favored Frascati.

Today, Castel de Paolis has won kudos within some Italian wine circles for
its more distinctive blends.

Experts are yet unsure about the early harvest. Attilio Scienza, a
professor of horticulture at the University of Milan with an expertise in
vineyards, has advised the Santarelli family on how to experiment with new
varieties of grapes.

Last week, looking at the harvest, he was cautious about blaming global
warming - and the effects of human beings on the environment - for the
change.

"There are records of early harvest across history," Scienza said, and
those early harvests can have some effect on how growers look at the next
season. If the pattern continues, he said, "this will likely change the
variety of grapes in Europe. Growers will have to find grapes that fit the
weather cycle."

Robert Stefanski, an agricultural meteorologist with the World
Meteorological Organization, a United Nations agency based in Geneva, said
that no one could say whether Italy's early harvest is a sign of global
warming. What is happening in Italy might be a weather cycle, and there is,
he said, "a difference between climate and weather."

But the example also falls in what Stefanski said is a 30-year trend of
warmer temperatures in the world, "and crops are responding to that."

In May, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its
fourth report, warning that global warming would increase the number of
extreme weather events. Its experts have said 2007, so far, has been an
active year for such weather, with unprecedented floods in England, high
temperatures in Europe and record storms in China and East Asia.

If summers in Italy continue to simmer, though, the Santarellis and their
crew of grape-pickers said they might see other traditions shift. While some
workers were wide-eyed about this year's harvest, Fabrizio was sanguine
about its opportunities.

"The first week of October was harvest time and the first Sunday of October
was always the day of the Grape Harvest Festival," he said. "OK, so now we
can call it the 'New Wine Festival.'"