Willamette Valley is handling climate change quite well, thank you

From the chapter: Terroir in peril

Larry Stone MS, founder of Lingua Franca in Willamette Valley. wineandspiritsmagazine.com

Forget the politics. When even Willamette Valley producers are saying climate change is exerting stylistic changes on the holiest of holy “somm wines,” Pinot Noir, maybe we need to start rethinking things.

Like the idea that Oregon produces strictly gentle, delicate styles of Pinot Noir in comparison to all those ruffians grown further south (can you spell Russian River Valley?). Or the idea that the ideal Pinot Noir is under 14% alcohol.

Back in 2017 I tasted a lot of damned good Pinot Noir at the International Pinot Noir Conference in McMinnville, Oregon. Even more shocking, at the time, was how close the wines of the two predominant states represented at this annual Pinot orgy had shifted in terms of fruit expression and scale. There were some California Pinot Noirs (such as Miner, Three Sticks, and B. Kosuge) that came across as leaner and more delicate than most of the Oregon Pinot Noirs. And there were some mighty “big” Oregonians (Domaine Drouhin, Saffron Fields, Beckam) among the invariable waifish tarts (among the latter beauties—Brick House, Evening Land, Lingua Franca, Antica Terra, Hyland, and Stoller).

So I asked some of the usual suspects about what’s going on, and how they've been handling things—particularly in light of the recent plethora of “hot” climate vintages. Chehalem’s Harry Peterson-Nedry, it turned out, had been faithfully tracking heat accumulations over the years. According to him: “From 1961 to 1990 we averaged 1,970 degree days—a solid, lower Region I. From 1997 to 2006 the average was 2,294 degree days—higher up in the Region I scale. But during the last 5 years [2011-2016] we averaged 2,572 degree days—suddenly we’re in Region II territory.”

Peterson-Nedry calls this a “new norm” for Willamette Valley. Lynn Penner-Ash gave her take: “Even our most recent ‘cool’ vintage (in 2011) would have been considered ‘warm’ by previous standards. Today we farm in expectation of warmer growing seasons—mulching younger vines, irrigating where we never did before, less leaf pulling, and leaving more crop to slow down vine growth. In the winery, we’ve increased whole cluster fermentation and are picking blocks in two picks to help balance sugar and acid—and ice, lots of ice to cool down the incoming fruit.”

The objective, according to Brick House’s Doug Tunnell, is to retain the “sensory profile of Willamette Valley... spices, minerals, salinity, floral aromatics and freshness, which can be lost in warm vintages.” To achieve that, Tunnell has been employing late season hedging to stimulate growth and “incrementally slow down the ripening process and extend hang time.” As a Biodynamic farmer, Tunnell has curtailed horn silica preparation (a photosynthesis enhancement, less necessary in warm years) and increased 500 horn manure (enriching microbials in soil lost in hot, dry summers). Still, Tunnell admits it’s a struggle to keep alcohols in the 13.5% range and cling to Oregon’s “raison d’être... that bright freshness, complexity and length best delivered in long growing seasons, and at lower alcohols.”

Mother Nature, if anything, is dictating more lavish fruit qualities, which you find in wines such as the Penner Ash Pas de Nom Pinot Noir. Either that, or an even chunkier “mountain” meatiness in well established icons such as the Chehalem Corral Creek from Chehalem Mountains. The classic svelte, acid driven Willamette Valley character can still be found, but in not as much of a delicate, or subtle, package.

Oregon’s Dr. Gregory Jones, renowned climatologist.

The writing, so to speak, is on the wall. In 2024, a team of climatologists led by Oregon's Gregory V. Jones published a revision of international climate classifications entitled Historic Changes and Future Projections In Köppen-Geiger Climate Classifications in Major Wine Regions Worldwide. It gives a science based accounting of rising temperatures taking place over the past 50 years, along with hard-nosed projections of what wine regions should expect over the next 20 to 40 years. The report is sobering. A passage summarizing the findings:

Wine regions of the west coast of the USA are mostly projected to transition from a temperate warm-summer Mediterranean (Csb) to a temperate hot-summer Mediterranean (Csa) climate type, like what is projected in the IP, while in California, dry arid hot climate types (BWh-desert) are expected to increase, reflecting that the summers are expected to be much hotter.

The French, as it were, have not been waiting for the inevitable. You may have heard that in Bordeaux, a centuries-old bastion of wine tradition, six "new" grapes have already been authorized: Albariño, Liliorila (a cross of Chardonnay and Baroque), Touriga Nacional, Castets, Marselan (Grenache x Cabernet Sauvignon cross), and Arinarnoa (Tannat x Cabernet Sauvignon).

Meanwhile, the University of Bordeaux has been cultivating a database of 52 wine grape varieties for the express purpose of researching cultivars better adapted to increased temperatures. Some Bordeaux vignerons have not been waiting for government approval⏤ by the 2020s a few of them had already begun experimenting with more heat-tolerant grapes such as Grenache, Syrah , Carignan, Nero d'Avola and Tempranillo,

I worry. The last thing anyone wants to see is Oregon Pinot Noirs that taste like Californians. I don't even want to see Oregon Pinot Noirs that taste like Burgundies, let alone Bordeaux crus that resemble (perish the thought) Napa Valley Cabernets. What would be the point?

Is terroir in peril? No. It will just be different. I suspect that the best vineyards and most talented winemakers will continue to produce the best wines, no matter what. Just don’t expect the sensory profiles to remain the same (to paraphrase Talking Heads) as it ever was.