I just saw a piece on the Wine Spectator site today by James Suckling about the great 2001 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva wines that are just hitting stores. In his blog, Suckling calls the our era a “golden age” for Brunello. Suckling’s enthusiasm mirrors that of his coworker Bruce Sanderson, the Spec’s Burgundy critic, who has been raving about the 2005 vintage on his own blog over the last week or so – ravings that have been echoed all across Europe recently. These love letters to modern European wine follow Suckling’s (and Robert Parker’s) ecstasy over the 2005 Bordeaux vintage, and Sanderson’s backflips over 2005 German rieslings, and the emergence of surprisingly good German red wines…

Put it all together, and you have what appears to be an apotheosis of European wine culture, at least according to one of the biggest and brawniest media signposts out there. Many of the wine world’s most powerful engines are running on all cylinders all at the same time, which is a staggering achievement – if true. All the hype could be just that; I haven’t had any 2005 Bordeaux or Burgundy, and all the Brunello I’ve tried in my life you could count on one hand, so I don’t have the experience to tell you one way or the other. But the excitement in many corners is palpable, even if the only way most of us can judge that excitement is through the prices on the bottles lining the top shelves of our wine stores. Hundreds of thousands of people are really excited by the wines coming out of vineyards and into their kitchens, and for good reason. Wine is an ever-expanding phenomenon, and its growth has seen a parallel growth in global viticulture from which nearly everyone has prospered.

So how can this be a bad thing?

Well, in itself, this “golden age” is not a bad thing. The trouble comes in when people are so excited about the trajectory that modern wine is on that nobody wants to mess with anything, especially if it is connected to the same reasons that things are going so well in the first place. If the train is picking up speed, why hit the brakes? Why force changes on the world that would slow down Margeaux and Beaune and Mosel-Saar-Ruwer and Montalcino when they’re all riding one of the all-time great hot streaks?

The trick is, of course, that there’s no going back once we’ve passed on from this age into the next – the one where it’s too hot in Bordeaux to grow cabernet franc, the Gevrey Chambertin is starting to taste like it was farmed in Lodi, and Lodi itself has to ban kerosene to prevent its growers from torching their own fields for the insurance. If (when?) we get there, we’re stuck. In the world of climate change, EVERY point is the point of no return. We don’t even know how much temperatures would continue to rise if as of tomorrow, we cut all worldwide CO2 emissions to zero. But they probably would.

For the most part, however, people don’t care, because of many reasons. Global warming is complicated. There’s no real solution to it at the moment. Stopping it involves giving up some of the things people value most right now – travel autonomy, comfort, isolation. The popular support just isn’t there yet, and it’s unlikely that that wil change any time soon.

So we’ll keep making wine, and keep celebrating it, and marvelling at our luck to be alive and drinking wine at this point in history. And then one day, those wines that keep getting better and better will release a vintage that seems a little pruny, contain not quite enough acid, and we’ll think, “Huh, this wasn’t quite as good as it was a year ago.” And the next year, we won’t buy a bottle. Instead, we’ll pick up a bottle of zinfandel from Sweden we’ve been hearing good things about. And we’ll go on with our day.

And with that, I’ve pretty much said my piece on global warming, cool-climate winemaking, and all that arglebargle. But there are lots of men and women out there who are far more knowledgeable and eloquent that me on the subject, and I heartily encourage you to go out and find them. To get you started, here are some of the sources I used to gather some of the info for my posts. For starters, there’s the Los Angeles Times article I already linked to. One of the quoted scientists in the article, Gregory V. Jones, has a web site at his university that contains many of his papers on the subject of climate change as it affects vineyards and wine. At least those papers were there – currently the “Research” portion of his web page says “Under Construction.” For a discussion on how a cooler climate affects the syrah grape, check out what Nick Peay has to say here. Bruce Cass has a piece about California’s cool climate regions on his web site that’s worth check out if you need an introduction. Clos Pepe Vineyards has a good explanation of the regional characteristics of the Santa Rita Hills AVA here. There’s lots more that I’ve read and even more that you could find, but I’ll stop there. My high horse is about to pass out from exhaustion.

Of course, the day after I promise all sorts of exhaustive investigation, I’m overloaded at work and have to cut my illusions of journalistic grandeur short. What can one do but blame it on the boss (anova?).

But I can still throw some information at you about the concept of cool climate wine. (I’m not trying to look like an expert here, because I’m not, but I’ll try and sound like one so that you pay attention.) For example, cool climate grapes such as pinot noir and chardonnay require long, stable growing seasons extending into October, without extreme short-term temperature variations, in order to flourish. According to studies performed in Australia and elsewhere, earlier heat spikes in the late summer can cause the fruit to cease receiving nourishment through the rachis, ending the grape’s maturation. This has several effects. When the rachis stops transmitting nourishment because of heat, the grape dehydrates slightly in the heat, producing a grape (and eventually a wine) with higher sugar levels , lower acid levels, and a sweeter, fatter taste. Additionally, the stunted period of growth precludes the grape from maturing further on the vine and gaining complex levels of flavors during the late season.

Of course, these nuances of season don’t apply just to pinot noir and chardonnay. Other grapes, including syrah, gewurztraminer, and possibly cabernet sauvignon, can benefit from similarly extended growth seasons. Whether the traits carried by cool-climate versions of these varietals are good things depends on who you talk to and what they think about how syrah or cab “should” taste. Some people feel that growing syrah or cabernet within a cool climate will lead to thin or vegetal-tasting wines. From my own experience, I have to disagree, but I wasn’t in a wine-tasting mode in the 80s, when many California winemakers attempted to pick grapes early in an effort to duplicate Bordeaux’s climate effects, which lead to some critics complaining of harsh green wines.

Growing grapes for syrah, for example, can be one of many different experiences depending entirely on where you decide to plant your vineyard. Take Santa Barbara County as an example. Within the county are two contiguous, yet vastly different AVAs: Santa Rita Hills and Santa Ynez Valley. The Santa Rita Hills AVA averages ripening  temperatures 10-15 degrees F cooler than its big-sister appellation, the Santa Ynez Valley AVA, thanks to its exposure to cool ocean breezes. This means that two syrahs that come from the two different AVAs can both be casually referred to as “Santa Barbara syrah” but in fact can experience vastly different growth conditions, to say nothing of winemaking techniques, and therefore afford vastly different tastes once sampled. A syrah bearing the name of Lafond Vineyard, Sanford Vineyard, or Melville Vineyard is likely to carry northern-Rhone style syrah typified by the characteristics of rich earth and acids in balance with fruit. A syrah coming from Vogelzang Vineyard or Larner Vineyard, however, is more likely to evoke notes of blueberries, blackberries, and other dark, sweet fruit.

Other areas that exhibit cool-climate conditions similar to Santa Rita Hills include Sonoma (Carneros, Sonoma Coast and Russian River Valley AVAs), Anderson Valley, Edna Valley, and Santa Cruz. Within each region you will find wineries and wines that produce distinctive expressions of the local growing environment, encompassing weather, terrain, and soil, that are cherished by small but passionate groups of wine geeks. There are exceptions; there are always exceptions. I don’t think most folks who are fond of Kosta Browne’s Russian River Valley and Sonoma Coast Pinot Noirs are dazzled by their subtlety or expression of terroir. But these wines are all made in areas that are in real danger due to the massive changes that could take effect due to global warming.

If the temperature of the ocean rises, for instance – a scenario predicted by many scientists who have explored global warming – the cooling ocean breezes enjoyed by most of these appellations will be rendered useless, and the vineyards that once prospered under their protection will quickly be unable to sustain the grapes that they now depend on for their continued success. Replanting for warm-weather grapes is always an option for the owners and vintners who work these plants, but does anyone really want to see that hypothetical play out? We’ve got a good thing going right now. Vineyards planted in the last 30 years are aging and developing the complexity that comes with older vines. To tear everything up and start over with cabernet or zinfandel would be to start again at square one for a lot of wineries just beginning to develop a unique style of winemaking – a distinctly unsavory outcome for those vintners, not to mention the appreciative connoisseurs who fund their efforts.

To me, the difference between appellations and climates is everything. I love that California wine can adopt such different guises while occupying vineyard space separated by perhaps half an hour’s drive in many cases – and succeed on its own terms in both regions. I don’t put an intrinsic value of one place over the other; both warm- and cool-climate area have lots to offer the eager wine drinker, and there’s no reason to spurn one entirely for the other unless you’re looking for wine to do one specific thing for you. So (if you’ll forgive the grandstanding for a moment) let’s do what we can personally to prevent global warming from getting much worse by doing things like avoiding excessive CO2 emissions and applying conscientious standards to our everyday consumer and commuter lifestyles, in order to make sure that Santa Rita Hills syrah is still around and marching to the beat of its own drummer in the 22nd century.

A few months ago, I was at a farmers market when I saw one of the first butternut squashes of the season on a local grower’s table. Cool, I thought, butternut squash season is here. I love those oddly shaped little guys. Butternut squash makes a great risotto (as Cookingchat and Good Wine Under $20 announced recently), and it also serves as the basis for a classic bistro pasta dish, butternut squash-filled ravioli with fried sage leaves.

Excited by the possibilities, I picked one up, brought it home, and placed it on the kitchen table like a trophy. It was ready. Except for one little problem…I had forgotten how much work it was to remove the usable interior of the butternut squash from the thick, unyielding exterior. That sucker is hard to cut, and the irregularity of the shape doesn’t help either. After looking at it a moment, I decided that I didn’t have the time or energy – I forget which – to use it that night, so I left it where it was. Which is where it stayed. For days…then weeks…then months. Unused. Neglected. Until one day, I had to face up to the fact that it was gone, and was forced to throw it away. A sad reminder of my own indifference to the poor dude’s ticking biological clock.

What’s all this got to do with anything? Well, it’s all a very long way of pointing out that we all have something or other in our lives that we really should be doing something about before it becomes an unfixable problem, yet never somehow get around to before it’s too late, like my ex-friend the squash. But while the small things we neglect tend to come and go without too much of an impact, there are big problems that we all are at least a little complicit in, problems that we avoid thinking too much about because a) our part of the problem is a very, very small one and b) we alone could never solve it. Yet our avoidance, when adjoined to the avoidance of every other person in our community or our country, simply propels that problem a little further down the road – a little closer to the point of no return. What kind of problem, you ask? Well, how about a crazy little thing called global warming?

Okay, most (all?) of us can  acknowledge that global warming is a massive problem that needs fixing soon. But what is this discussion doing on a food and wine blog? The answer is, it has everything to do with what you eat and where it comes from. And if you care at all about the origin of what comes across your plate every day, that’s a big issue. I’ve been thinking about this for a little while, but the close look at the effects of global warming on the state’s wine economy that came out recently in the Los Angeles Times has me thinking about it much more often. It really is required reading if you live in California and you care about its wine.

I’m not going to spend much time talking about how global warming will affect the type, quality, and quantity of produce that we see here in southern California or anywhere else, because I don’t know enough about the geographic boundaries of what is grown where here. Suffice it to say that we’ll feel the difference in climate when we head to the farmers market each week. But I do know enough about California wine regions to recognize that many of them are in real danger of being transformed completely by a significant change in temperature – either into a place that will be forced to grow an entirely different style of wine than those currently in practice, or a place that simply cannot sustain wine-producing grapes.  And it’s some of California’s most cherished wines – its earthy, subtle Pinot Noir, its complex and rich (and unoaked, when you can find it!) Chardonnay – that are facing a real crisis, conceivably as soon as this decade. Folks, there’s no other way to put it: the biological clocks on dozens, if not hundreds, of vineyards are ticking. And a hundred tons of grapes won’t fit in our garbage cans.

Over the next few days, I want to take a look at some of the wine-growing regions in immediate danger from global warming. I want to talk about what makes cool-climate wines stand apart in this state. I want to taste an example of a cool-climate California wine to see if I can pick out what makes these wines different from their warm-weather brethren, and I want to see what other information is out there about the affect of global warming on wine. So if you’re not into the whole global warming thing, check back in on Friday for a new restaurant review. Otherwise, let’s everyone look into their cellar or on their kitchen counter, and think about whether or not what you have there would even exist if the world was 10 degrees hotter.