Invest in Swedish Vineyards
This article at Slate details how global warming might affect the northernmost wine regions and improve the quality of the grapes. This isn't particularly new—Gastronomica ran a similar article years ago—but it is interesting. The wine growers I spoke to in the Mosel are very aware of global warming, which tends to have more pronounced effects further up the ladder rungs of latitude lines. The Saar tributary no longer creates grapes with quite the same amount of acidity, and ripeness has ceased to be an issue for well-tended Mosel vineyards. The string of banner years speaks to this quiet shift.
But the Slate article fails to touch on an issue covered by the Gastronomica piece, which is that certain types of grapes might cease to do well in the regions where they now grow. Austria will lose the ability to produce great Grüner Veltliner, the Russian River Valley will no longer make Pinot Noir. Maybe that's not a problem, certainly not on the order of the worlwide famines, droughts, and disease outbreaks we can expect as the earth continues to heat up, but it does point to the creeping, subtle effects of global warming. The same long-term, unchanging-on-a-human-scale effects that make it difficult to catch the ear of policy makers.
- Class Update: A Night Of Terroir!
I started class the other night by asking how many of my students had heard the term terroir: Most had. Then I asked them what it meant, and the room quieted down. Tentatively, they began to mention the definitions they had heard while I scribbled them...
- Wbw 21/imbb 26: Merkelbach Riesling Kabinett
Do I have a favorite wine? Something to use for the "Pair your favorite wine with food" slant of this month's joint edition of Is My Blog Burning and Wine Blogging Wednesday? My favorite wine varies with the week, but given my recent article and my...
- Riesling In The Mosel Valley, The Art Of Eating, Issue 71
Photo by Melissa Schneider. A little less than a year ago, Melissa and I traveled through Germany's Mosel region, home to some of the world's best wines. I envisioned the trip as a vacation, but it seemed silly to not sell an article about...
- Wtn: 2002 Weingut Albert Gessinger Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese, 2-star
I almost didn't participate in this round of Wine Blogging Wednesday. I've been too busy, and I thought about letting another one slip by. But at a recent party, Alder, Sam, and Fatemeh urged me to do it. They reminded me that my love of German...
- 10 Years Of The Age Of Riesling
Many of you know from previous posts that I'm a huge fan of German and Austrian wines. Their rieslings (from both countries) and grüner veltliners (from Austria) are very flexible with food. Just ask any wine director worth their salt. Good German...