We have spoken few times about how dry the weather has been this Winter. The lack of rain has been harmful not only for the vineyards but also for the rest of the crops, mostly olives and almonds trees, which are the most grown in the Douro.

Additionally to these cultures, thickets surrounding the vineyards, which are spread out through all the valley, are also facing the severe drought. In one of my trips to Porto, few kilometers after leaving S. João da Pesqueira, getting to Ervedosa do Douro, a small thicket was on fire. The firemen were already there and probably had controlled the situation but is astonishing to see flames as early as March. Something goes very wrong this year.

Oscar

Those who have been visiting the south of Europe for the last weeks know what the title of this post means. The weather in the Douro valley, in Portugal, and also in many areas of the Mediterranean has been wonderful. Clear sky with sunshine from sunrise until sunset and warm temperatures during day time. If we wouldn’t live out of agriculture, more precisely vine growing, this would just be a perfect weather. But sunshine means no rain and vines need water for the new season which is about to start.

I’ve been looking at the national rainfall data of the last months and it is really disappointing. Almost no rain so far in January, in December it rained one third of the long-term average and, even worse, in all 2011 we hadn’t even 50% of the the average yearly rainfall of the last 70 years.

Consequences: it is January, middle of Winter, and we are already in moderate drought in all the Douro valley territory, as classified by the Portuguese Weather Institute. This is not at all good news for the beginning of the year. To make good wine in such a hot region as the Douro, vines need to have enough water reserves in the subsoil, which they don’t have for now. As you may know, vine irrigation in the Douro is forbidden, unless for very specific conditions. So, hopefully the nice weather will stop and heavy clouds full of water will start to move from the Atlantic inland, in the direction of the Douro.

Oscar

Editor’s note: One of these days, I was going with Luiz Alberto from Porto to the Douro when we started talking about the eruption of the Icelandic vulcano Eyjafjallajökull in April last year and its effects on grapes ripening in the Douro. Other discussions followed. Suddenly, I challenged Luiz to write a paper about how climate change is going to affect the viticulture in the Douro. Here are Luiz’s thoughts, originally posted on his blog, My Wine Studies. It’s a long one, but very worth to read. Oscar

When dealing with climate change, natural climate variations should never be discarded. There is  “climate variability”, which is the change in the weather behavior at a certain location from time to time. However, climate change due to human   activities is happening and will have a large impact and many implications everywhere on the planet. The world’s major wine-producing countries – Italy, France, Spain, USA and Australia – are all at risk. Vines are extremely sensitive   to the numerous changes associated with climate change, but this paper will have the subject under a microscope and only discuss how it’s going to affect viticulture in the Douro Valley (and it assumes a ‘business as usual’   approach). This discussion is about what needs to be done in a scenario where the temperatures are higher (with an increase in frequency of extremely hot days), the droughts are more severe, and there’s increased surface   evaporation. Efforts need to be made to keep viticulture and winemaking viable and profitable in this traditional wine region.

Temperature change can have dramatic influence on grapevines and, in general, the solution for the higher temperatures has been simplified: “Go higher“ (either in altitude or in latitude) and the sweet spot for a certain grape variety will be re-stored. This rule certainly applies to the Douro   Valley, where the altitude of the vineyards can vary from about 300 feet ASL to almost 3,000 feet. The Douro has another important advantage over other wine regions:  Exposition to the sun is certainly another remedy for the problems that will be faced. A possible solution is abandoning the south facing vineyards that are too hot  (or try some dramatic canopy management changes including shading) and replant on the cooler, north facing slopes. The Valley offers 360° of exposition, but early adaptation to the new scenario is going to be key to a successful transition (and such a transition requiring new plantings will take years). Most of the new vineyards in the Douro Superior  (where the rainfall level is 1/3 of the Baixo-Corgo) are already north facing.  For example, the famous vineyards Quinta de Vargellas and Vesúvio are both north facing.

In the wine industry things move really slowly (it takes a few years for a vine to start producing wine and many more before it starts making good wine), people have to start acting now. The rest of the world will be also responding to climate change. The efficiency of the   adaptation is crucial.  A region as traditional as the Douro needs to adapt quick and show flexibility. Some laws will become old and inappropriate. These laws will make no sense under the new environmental conditions and need to  be eliminated. For instance, there are significant physiological and morphological differences among Vitis vinifera varieties and the ones that are allowed (or recommended) to be planted need to be re-evaluated in over time. There are hundreds of grape varieties in Portugal alone. The ones that are less sensitive to hydric stress and high temperatures need to be favored against the ones that don’t perform as well under these conditions (such as Tinta Barroca ou Tinta Francisca. However, to mitigate  this issue, it’s also possible to use rootstocks that are  drought resistant (relatively speaking) and, because of that,  R110 is becoming more and more popular in the Douro. It was already used in the past (along with 1103P), but lately more and more producers want drought tolerant rootstocks, rather quantity or quality focused rootstocks.

Higher temperatures, in an already warm region like the Douro, will inevitably have some negative consequences in the   short term (different from a region, like the Mosel for  example, where the  extra heat is helping to bring a large  number of “great vintages” in the last  few decades): Fall  in values of total acidity (especially malic acid) and increase in sugar content (which in return will produce  more alcoholic wines). Harvesting earlier is a possibility to minimize these problems, but the result will be wines without complete phenolic maturity, with harsh and green   tannins. Again, other varieties (or clones of some of the existing varieties) and rootstocks with better resistance to droughts and higher temperatures will have to be   planted. These new plantings will better perform under these even warmer conditions.  Early-ripening grape varieties that are very susceptible to hydric stress may have serious problems being grown in some parts of the region. Canopy management could play a role, with less sunlight and more shading of fruit. However, increasing canopy size also means more dehydration, so this is really a double-edged sword solution to the problem.

But temperature is not the only direct effect of climate change:

• heavy precipitation events can cause damage (due to erosion) to the vineyards. Studies show that these events will become more frequent, making it unbearably expensive (and labor intensive) to repair the walls of the socalcos and patamares of the region.

• earlier budburst can have a major effect, increasing the risk of frost substantially in some varieties such as Tinto Cão. Moreover, if the season starts earlier, it will finish earlier, meaning that harvests will occur earlier and will take place at an even warmer month of the year. This may reduce the quality of the grapes, through a significant loss of water and volatile compounds. Harvesting at night could mitigate   this, though how does one dare harvest at night on such steep slopes?

• the dates between early (such as Bastardo and Tinta Barroca) and late-ripening varieties  (such as Tinto Cão) will be compressed. Since late-ripening   varieties are more sensitive to the increase in temperature than early-ripening varieties, there will be complications to manage the intake of fruit in the winery.

• rainfall is predicted to be more irregular in the Douro Valley with a consequent reduction in water   availability. It seems that there is a consensus that the need for irrigation in viticulture will increase with the warmer and drier conditions and with the more frequent droughts. Since irrigation in the Douro Valley is illegal today, the authorities are seriously considering a change of this law. It seems that the IVDP  (Instituto do Vinho do Porto) is open to analyze the possibility of allowing irrigation for certain cases where it  is proved that irrigation clearly produces better quality  grapes and wines. There are some vineyards where irrigation is already being tested. One example is Quinta de Ervamoira, from Adriano Ramos Pinto. Another is Quevedo that also have drip irrigation in one of their vineyards, Quinta das Olgas in the Douro Superior, since 2007. Although 4 years is a very short period, they could already see some vineyards performing better with irrigation, generating better quality grapes. One good example is the harvest of 2010. Part of the vineyard was irrigated while the other part not. The not irrigated vineyard in some cases couldn’t complete the ripening process, leaving many bunches completely shivered. The part that was irrigated produced healthy bunches with good concentration of anthocyanins and phenolic compounds, that delivered nice colors and flavors to the wines.

• while irrigation seems to be a solution to mitigate the problem with  more frequent and severe droughts, there’s a serious need to  work on measures to promote the   sustainability of the water supply for the entire  region.

The authorities and the people of Douro Valley need a coordinated effort to mitigate these adverse conditions. As Pancho Campo MW said  “Technology will have to be developed and adapted to confront   the consequences and impacts of climate change, looking for more efficient energy systems, reducing considerably the emissions of greenhouse gases,  designing new forms of  fuels, promoting recycling, reforestation, etc. The   international industry must invest in adaptation to new technologies that can help mitigate the effects of climate change. From the point of view of economy, new types of incentives, subsidies and tax deductions are to be   implemented, with economists, scientists and politicians working under a well coordinated effort.” Profitability ultimately drives the wine industry (or any industry for that matter), but showing that a winery is “doing its part” on   mitigation is essential as well. Consumers worldwide will be watching which policies are being implemented to deal with carbon dioxide emissions. The expectations are high and failure to meet them may cause a negative image for   the entire region. Not only there’s need to find solutions to adapt to the unfavorable conditions that the future may bring, but also to make every possible effort to choose the pathways that will lead to less drastic consequences.

By Luiz Alberto, from My Wine Studies

A few days ago I was in England for a Port and Douro wine tasting in The Square & Compasses, an old pub located in Fuller Street, in Fairstead, Essex. Fuller Street is a very small village, with under 50 people, where everybody knows each other and where life is relaxed and very enjoyable. The village is very old, the pub itself is from 1652. It’s actually the nicest pub I’ve ever been at, not surprising voted as Food Pub of the Year 2010-2011 for Chelmsford and Mid-Essex.

Victor Room, owner of the pub, organized a delicious dinner for 60 people who had the chance to taste three of our Ports and Oscar’s 2008, our red wine. If the origin of the drinks where Portuguese, the origin of the food was obviously local, with special emphasis on game from the farm shoot of the village. Pigeon, partridge and pheasant are the main birds grown in this farm.

But lets go to another thing I’d like to share with you. On the menu card designed for this special tasting, there was a sentence that caught my attention: “Proud to be local.” What does this mean? I thought to myself. Maybe it says that The Squares & Compasses likes to be located in a small community, in the countryside, where its natives are like family and where everybody is available to give a hand when necessary. It means that Victor relies on the community to live, while the community finds in the pub the place where they can go for a beer after work or for dinner when they don’t want to cook at home.

I feel I’m local too. I belong to the Douro, more specifically to the small town of S. João da Pesqueira. But in spite of having a beautiful landscape, we are deprived of may other things. For instance, we don’t have the cultural offer that other Portuguese who live in Porto or Lisbon have. But we can always go from time to time to the big cities and get from there what we need. That’s probably what the people from Fuller Street do when want something from London, which is 1h30m away.

In a time where more and more people are migrating to cities, we can’t forget to help local communities to survive. We need to support local business, as local people need these businesses too. Otherwise, when we go to the rural areas in the countryside nobody will be there to give us a smile! And I’m sure if you visited it, you wouldn’t forget the breakfast at The Square & Compasses!

Oscar

Fire in the north of Portugal including the Douro valley: orange areas - fire last 7 days; yellow areas - fire last 30 days

Since the beginning of the season over 68,000 hectares of forest have burnt in Portugal, around 10,000 of which were in the Douro. A part from the severe consequences of these disasters, the inevitable question now is, will the smoke of these fires affect the wines of the upcoming harvest, which should start in a few weeks? From what we saw in 2003 in Australia and in 2008 in California, there is some risk of this to happen in the Douro.

Now the situation is better, as temperatures are cooling off and the numbers of fires dropping, but in the last weeks, the Douro valley was covered with smoke from the fires, as I had never seen.

As the wines from the 2008 harvest from Mendocino and Humboldt (the most affected by fires in 2008 of the Californian wine regions) are being released, producers and consumers are finding many smoky flavors in the wines. At least more than can be justified by aging in barrels or by the character of grape varietals used. This smoky taste was not detected during the fermentation of the musts in 2008. Only after a certain period aging, has this flavor become evident. But is there a solution for it? Ii it possible to take the smoky flavor out from the wine, once it is impregnated? Well it seems it is. Some tests in Australia and USA show that using a high-tech membranes filtering process can not only reduce the alcohol content, for which this filter is mostly used, but can also eliminate unwelcome flavors from the wine. Of course this is not a solution for a small winery dedicated to make wines as natural as possible. I don’t even know if Port Wine legislation would allow us.

But if there is no reasonable solution, lets go for the good news. Studies show that many consumers not only don’t mind about the smoke, but they actually like it. But what if instead of wine, it was Port Wine? Would the higher alcohol volume combined with natural sweetness change the tasting profile? Probably not, so all we can do for now is to wait for the harvest to come and after some months aging we will see if the smoke from burning pines and cork trees, and maybe some olives and almond trees, gave some special taste to the 2010 Douro wines.

Oscar

There are many blog entries on Internet about fires and wines worth to read:

A year in wine: no smoke in their eyes

San Francisco gate: smoke Australian wine research Institute white wines

My daily Wine: Interview with Tony Coturri – California

Forbes: Australia technology grapes when smoke gets in wine

Norcal Wine: La Follette wines

Most animals love to feed at sunrise. This is was this rabbit was doing.  Where is it? Big tip: in the main road!

Oscar

Yesterday our old cardboard boxes supplier visited us for a commercial meeting where I made a great discovery. We had been working with this company for many years but recently a other player made us a much more competitive proposal and we decided to switch. When I was explaining to the salesman that we changed because of price of their cardboard, he asked me to see the product of his competitor, our new supplier.

When I showed him the new box he immediately told me that the components of that box were different. While his boxes were made with new craft paper, the ones we were now buying were actually made with recycled paper. I was so surprised that I asked him: “Really? So the reason why I’m paying less is because I’m getting recycled cardboard?” Yes, he affirmed. I couldn’t believe in what I was hearing, we were not only saving money and slightly reducing the price our clients pay for our wines but we were also saving the planet! This is the best of two worlds!

Oscar

The end of the Christmas season used to mark the best time to harvest our olives. And this year was not an exception. Beside the 250 acres of vines, Quevedo farms 50 acres of organic olive trees. Since 2003 we are growing our olives free of any chemical and farming in an integrated organic process. We have around 2,000 trees with 70 to 150 years old and around 2,500 between 2 and 10 years old.

Thus, during these weeks we have left the pruning shears at home and we have been dedicated to olive harvesting. Traditionally we used to use long sticks with which harvesters manually shaken the boughs and made the olive fall over a device called the oli-net, wrapped around the trunk of the tree and opened to form an umbrella-like catcher. This year we decided to introduce a new technology to harvest the olives. We are using a vibration harvester, which shakes the boughs, dislodging the olive fruit in few seconds. It definitively creates some vibration in the trunk but seems not to affect the heath of the olive tree. We have studied the effects of this harvester and we concluded no major damage was caused to the tree on the weeks and months after the harvest. The video helps to explain how this works.

To make a liter of olive oil, this year, we need around 6.5 kilograms of olive fruit. We expect to make around 4.000 liters of organic olive oil this year, slightly higher than last year. The younger olive trees produce more and more each year and the older ones keep their low yield and concentrated fruit.

Take a look at the video. What you think about this process?

Oscar Quevedo

In recent years, or maybe even in the last decades, there has been a considerable amount of research about wine closures. Some defend cork, others screwcap, and some advise for the t-cap (very hard to find a producer however!! – do you know any?).  In countries with a long wine production track record, cork is the most used closure, while, especially in the southern hemisphere, the screwcap is used for high turnover wines. However, most of the expensive and iconic wines, regardless the country, also use cork.

These debates are also taking place in the EWBC network and I think I can present you a Port Wine producer’s point of view. So what are Port Wine companies using as closure?

All the port wine producers use cork in their wines. Nevertheless, there is at least one company – Castelinhos Vinhos – using plastic cork for some cheaper wines sold in the UK and in Germany. Besides this exception, the industry uses t-caps for the cheaper wines like standard Ruby, Tawny and White and cork for the remaining high quality ports. For a premium ruby port, we will use better cork than for a premium tawny, because the former’s aging process occurs mainly in the bottle, where it can stay for some decades; while the latter is bottled ready for drinking, after having aged in wood.

In my opinion, Port Wine will resist to the new wave of screw cap and plastic plug used in table wines. Port Wine is a traditional drink also in this sense, and customers would hardly accept a different closure than cork. Cork allows a slow oxidation of the wine, which is complementary to its aging process. Moreover, cork is the closure with longest expiration date. We also know that there have been improvements in the cork’s quality, as a result of the fact that the leading cork producers, and their association, have been doing important research to reduce cork’s bad influence in wine. Curiously, the last table wine I tasted, yesterday at dinner with a friend who also attended the I EWBC, was infected with TCA!!

But regardless of one bad experience, Quevedo Estates will continue to use cork for its Port Wines and also for its table wines. It just makes sense.

Oscar Quevedo