Climate change and how to combat it, with wine.
Hello, hello and welcome back to the Swill Wineletter!
Honestly, I am not a fan of starting conversations by discussing the weather, it just seems too basic, except when I’m talking in reference to agriculture and wine production. Today’s discussion is exclusively about the weather and how badly it's affecting agriculture and wine production worldwide!
This year in Manchester, it rained nearly every day in July…which tells you we are definitely in full swing of an English Summer. Seems pretty standard, right? What’s not so normal is that May and June nearly broke UK records for boiling hot temperatures (32-37 degrees Celsius), and it was only last year when the record was set with a whopping 40 degrees Celsius!!
Over in mainland Europe, temperatures have been worse - The Mediterranean islands, Southern Italy, Spain and the South of France have reached near record-breaking numbers too: over the last 6 weeks, 40-47 degrees Celsius has been the norm, and it doesn’t seem to be cooling down anytime soon.
If rising temperatures continue to break records it will affect life and the future of humanity forever more…we know this.
It doesn’t have to be all dome and gloom though. In my opinion, wineries and farmers all across the world can help provide solutions to this ongoing battle with climate change.
What’s the key? Biodiversity.
So, what is biodiversity?
“the variety of plant and animal life in the world or in a particular habitat, a high level of which is usually considered to be important and desirable.”
I recently spoke to Loire Valley-based winemaker Laurent Saillard about climate change and how to combat it, he had an initial look of unsureness on his face, before thinking deeply and saying that “biodiversity in the vineyard is an essential step in the right direction”.
In super simple terms - it’s all about diversifying agricultural land with a variety of different plant life, animal life, Funghi and bacteria that can coexist together. All of these species work in unity to make a healthy ecosystem which creates life support, balance on the land, clean water, food and medicine.
As humans one of our massive downfalls over the last century is that we have become way too reliant on what we ‘want’ in life to survive, as opposed to requiring just what we ‘need’. We have used up too much of our natural resources and we are now in great danger of completely unbalancing the ecosystem which we rely on to actually survive.
“Humans have overfished the oceans, cleared forests, polluted our water sources, and created a climate crisis. These actions are impacting biodiversity around the world, from the most remote locales to our own backyards.” WorldWildLife.org
We need to flip the switch!
It’s no secret that heavy-handed, industrial farming practices have significantly contributed to the slow death of biodiversity: one of the many reasons you should think twice about buying that £7 bottle of wine in your local supermarket. Natural wine has always been a plausible industry to get behind and support when it comes to biodiversity amongst the land, for many years I’ve been trying to tell the naysayers, natural wine isn’t just a modern trend made up of cool labels and fruit-juice-lookin wines in clear bottles…it’s deeper than that bro.
Look at the Chilean wine scene for example;
Chilean wine growers have adopted many practices to encourage greater ecological diversity, including using forest strips to allow the movement of species; creating habitats that attract birds or insects to support natural pest control; eradicating invasive species; and working with native plants for water and soil protection. Some wine growers, such as Cono Sur, which is internationally recognized as a leader in sustainability, have used geese to control grape-eating beetles. WORDS Teva Kukan SOURCE VinePair.com
How YOU can help
Low-intervention (i.e. natural) winemakers have been actively farming in coexistence with their land since the get-go, they’ve been fighting the battle. We should be more focused on trying to convince the ‘traditional’ wineries and farmers of close proximity to change their way of work.
From our point of view as ‘regular’ people who might not be a farmer and feel like we can’t have a proper effect, this can be done in two ways;
Shop for food that is as local as possible.
Increase public demand and be willing to pay the extra few quid for organic certified goods, or in the case of wine, buy more natural wine.
1. Shopping for your groceries can be stressful, trying to find every last item on that list of yours is like a mission on the best of days, for you to then go home and take a bite into a tasteless tomato originating from Zambia tens of thousands of miles away. To add, it can be quite disheartening when that happens, and it’s mainly because we’re not shopping for local, organic produce as much as we should be. I am telling you right now: locally-sourced organic fruit, vegetables and meat taste 100x better than their outsourced counterparts. You don’t have to think too deeply about how it’s also reducing your carbon footprint, simply think about the improvement in quality and taste.
2. Creating a nationwide demand for organic produce and alcohol such as natural wine, will also help put biodiversity back on track here in the UK and across Europe. Of course, you have to come to terms with the fact that these goods cost a little bit more than their mass-produced counterparts, but I guess that’s not the worst negative when it comes to saving the planet, right? Once bigger, chemical-focused farmers and winemakers take notice of the fact that the general people won’t stand for industrial farming methods and poor-quality produce, they will have no other choice than to change their ways.
In conclusion
Listen, I’ll be the first to admit that this climate change/global warming conversation can be draining. We usually fall at the first hurdle of our insignificance as one singular human in this world of billions of humans. That’s all just a mental block though, we’ve conditioned ourselves to believe that we can’t make a change, but in all honesty, it’s a load of bollix! We are so much more powerful than we’re made to believe, we are all able to make a change by simply following those two simple steps I spoke about above.
The next and last step in equipping yourself to fight this battle - is education. There’s nothing better than self-education when it comes to beating a problem, it doesn't have to be through the form of reading books either!
Check out Blindboy Boatclub’s recent podcast on biodiversity, or WWF’s website for the full scoop on what exactly is biodiversity and how you can get involved with the matter.
It’s been a while since I’ve released a wineletter guys, and I’m sorry, but I needed a few weeks away from the platform to have a break from the daily typing and further develop ideas like this one you’ve just read.
Looking forward to catching up with you all again sometime next week for another Swill Wineletter.