Some wine producers in Canberra have been planting new wine varieties over the past couple of years, hoping they will be more resilient to climate change. Weather data shows that summers in the capital are getting longer and hotter, which is impacting the quality of more traditional wines.
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00:00As Canberra's cool climate wine region warms, these vines could produce the wines of the
00:08future.
00:09Directly behind me is Albarino and we've also planted Mentia and Paraletta.
00:13Spanish, white and red grape varieties planted at Mount Majuro Vineyard around two years
00:18ago, designed to future proof what goes in the bottle.
00:22We're looking for varieties that will have a longer ripening period and be more suited
00:27to a slightly warmer climate.
00:28Bureau of Meteorology data shows that average spring temperatures have been rising.
00:32If we look at the last 20 years, we've also seen an increase between 1.3 and 1.7 degrees
00:37and that's quite a lot in maximum temperatures.
00:40Summer now starts sooner and lasts longer.
00:43What we're seeing is that the temperatures that we used to associate with summer, maybe
00:4750 or even 30 years ago, those temperatures are happening now in spring.
00:51The effects of climate change have been steadily and noticeably changing Mount Majuro's wine
00:56production.
00:57Based on the data that shows over the last 20 years, we've seen greater than 30 days,
01:03maybe 40 days shortening of the season for Chardonnay.
01:07So we're harvesting it up to 40 days earlier than we did when we first started.
01:11For winemaking, an earlier, hotter spring means an earlier, shorter harvest.
01:16This can cause a crunch on resources like picking and processing, but crucially the
01:21wine just isn't as good.
01:23If it gets too hot, what will happen is we'll see fast ripening and we end up with sugar
01:28accumulation and our acid drops out, but we don't have flavour ripen as well.
01:33Majuro will continue to plant lesser known climate change tolerant varieties in the coming
01:38years.
01:39In time, consumers may have to change their palate.