Newsletter Archives > Viticulture

In the Vineyard : Spring 2006

Long-Term Planting,

or Reaping What We Sow

By Harry Peterson-Nedry

Javier and Augustin planting Grüner Veltliner and Riesling this spring at Wind Ridge.

Over the last year we've planted two new blocks of grapes in our Wind Ridge Vineyard on Ribbon Ridge that speak of the past and to the future.

Last spring, we planted a new block of Pinot Noir, using new rootstocks (3309), drip irrigation to start, and new spacings (2000 plants per acre), but employing old clones (Pommard), which began the industry. Considering the site's excellence, the pedigree of plant material that came from our first and best planting (5-Acre Block), and all we've learned since 1982, we're anticipating a great future for the block.

Last month, we planted an adjacent block with futuristic whites. As you know, I'm convinced Riesling is Pinot Noir in a white seersucker summer suit—complex, reflective of place, and elegantly ageable. We planted a block that includes enough of all the clones of Riesling available (6 or maybe 7) to make commercial-sized ferments, so we can learn about the breed as we grow the volume of world-class Riesling. And then, there's the block of Grüner Veltliner to really stretch comprehension, as we see with two acres what this great Austrian variety does here.

Because Things Are Changing

We experiment partly because we're restless and curious—OK, because I'm restless. But partly, we look to change because we have to. I'm in the no-nonsense, scientific camp on the reality of Global Climate Change and bear a sense of urgency that things need now to be done—or eventually we're done.

Myriad sources and views of data, both long-term and short-term, confirm startling symptoms of our altered climate. Close to home, we have only to look at the consistently higher heat accumulations of recent vintages and the extremely remote probability that the last ten vintages in a row all being at or above the mean for the 1961–1990 period is by chance. Statistically significant, no doubt. (Graphs showing Willamette Valley Heat Summation by Vintage and Heat Accumulation in Recent Vintages Compared to Average -- as PDFs)

The evidence is so overpowering that vineyard owners, even in generations-heavy European regions that have grown and become identified by single varieties of grapes, are now asking: "What will we grow when it becomes too hot for what we know?"

Average Growing Season Temperatures have continued to rise, pushing ripening in traditionally cooler regions like Burgundy earlier and almost outside appropriate ripening windows for Pinot Noir.

Dr. Gregory Jones of Southern Oregon University, a geographer/climatologist specializing in characterizing viticultural regions (his parents own Abacela in the Umpqua), has investigated climate changes over recent decades and their potential impact on normal ripening parameters of grape varieties worldwide.

Conclusions show improving ripening conditions with varieties that traditionally have had difficulty ripening in some years. And, with varieties that were well suited to regions historically, there are tendencies toward overripeness and early ripening that compromise finesse and elegance. With this change being ongoing rather than a single shift, it is ominous to hear the climate freight train gaining speed in the distance, without a plan to slow it.

We all must consider cause-and-effect, understanding what we've done to start this engine of change, so we can have a chance of slowing it. We must demand of ourselves, our companies, and our governments a will to change, even if it takes sacrifice. Or else, on our grandchildren's vineyard watch we'll be harvesting Tempranillo, Merlot, Cabernet, and Grenache in the Willamette Valley, rather than Pinot Noir.