UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE STUDY – IN THE NEAR FUTURE BRUNELLO, CHIANTI CLASSICO, AND NOBILE DI MONTEPULCIANO MAY NO LONGER HAVE THE RIGHT CLIMATIC CONDITIONS IN THEIR TERRITORIES OF ORIGIN. GLOBAL WARMING AND ITS EFFECTS ON WINEGROWING…

Within less than one hundred years, Brunello di Montalcino, Chianti Classico and Nobile di Montepulciano could become “extinct” wines. The climactic conditions that characterize these zones today may no longer exist at these latitudes, but will move further north: this is the "apocalyptic" scenario that has come out of the study "Effects of Meteoroclimatic Variability on the quality of Wines" completed in 2006 by the University of Florence research team (Simone Orlandini, Giampiero Maracchi, Marco Mancini from the Department of Agricultural Sciences and Forest Management at the University of Florence; Gaetano Zipoli and Daniele Grifoni of the Biometeorological Institute at the CNR of Florence).

The continued increase of the greenhouse effect, constantly accelerated by ever more aggressive human actions, will provoke serious climactic anomalies, like causing the temperature to rise from anywhere between 1.8 and 4 degrees centigrade by 2100 in comparison to average temperatures at the end of the last century. This was unanimously confirmed by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) at the World Economic Forum: from the UN to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), to give just a few examples.
The tendency towards an increase in temperatures within the last century has obviously included Italy as well, which has recorded an increase of about 1.2 degrees centigrade (according to recordings made by the historical Institute of Science of the Atmosphere and Climate (ISAC) under the CNR of Bologna).

And among the consequences of "global warming", there will even be the change in the geography of the wine world, with a progressive moving up of the latitude ideal for winemaking practices. This means that the best Tuscan wine terroir will soon change its territory.
Paradoxically, until now, the phenomenon has actually had "positive" results. Still according to the observations made in 2006 by the University of Florence, beginning in the 1980’s, in fact, the qualitative level of the three top names in Tuscan wines has registered an appreciable increase, that can not only be merited to technological advances in winemaking, but is also largely due to the particular climatic conditions, especially in terms of increased temperatures.
The tendency towards increasing temperatures, together with the decrease of rain will bring an excess of thermal availability and a lack in water resources, which will compromise the compatibility of the three Tuscan territories for satisfying winemaking activities.

The land has evidently been touched by other fairly recent climatic changes, which can be traced through the history of wine. In the centuries between 1000 and 1200, solar activities were very intense and gave the populations of the medieval ages a period of warmer temperatures and fertility, permitting the cultivation of grapevines imported by the Vikings in regions that were previously considered climactically unfavorable, like Scotland and even Norway, Iceland and Greenland. The era that followed, known as the "small ice age" (XVII – XVIII centuries) ended this period of grape growing in these northern regions (even though it has been indicated that the cause of the cessation ma also have been due to the interest of the English turning to the wines being produced in Aquitane).
This "small ice age" ended in the middle of the 19th century, and the weather conditions were created for the current winemaking geography. Unfortunately, the intensive increase in human activities at the beginning of the 20th century that have had consequential effects on the environment, have no precedence in history and are reason for quite pessimistic concerns.

Franco Pallini