Continuing increase in temperatures creates a great threat to the wineries in French regions where Beaujolais wine are produced. Climate change has hit France and this year has been its third hottest since 1900, causing numerous grape farms much problems. The heat makes the grapes ripen faster thus having higher sugar content making them more potent. Now, scientists are looking for ways around the problem, which is expected to cut the grape output of the region by a quarter this year.
Grape vines that contain yellow leaves and are missing foliage at the base of the main stem with withered grapes are the ones they don't need, says Jean-Michel Desperrier of the Beaujolais winemakers' research center in Sicarex. He is supervising a team of experts who are picking, weighing, and sorting small bunches of grapes that may potentially hold the answer to the region grape production problem. The team has a plot set aside that has been cultivated to grow different experimental varieties of the fruit.
According to Bertrand Chatelet, director of Sicarex, "warming has had positive effects on northern wineries like ours. It creates a prettier grape that is more mature." But he added later on that looking at the general picture of what the climate change will cause in the near future for production is likely harmful. The focus of the adaptation study efforts are for the Gamay, large, thick skinned grapes with loose bunches and is the main grape variety of the region,. France's national agricultural research institute created the effort LLACAVE, which concentrated on the adaptation studies.
The most promising lead comes from western Switzerland, in an area named Pully, the grape that they have grown there comes from the German grape, Reichensteiner and a Gamay, leading to the mix called, Gamaret. This mix could work for Beaujolais since it is already a blended wine. But for the other winemakers, such as the Burgundy winemakers, famous for producing Pinot Noirs, mix varieties are not suggestible.
