A dry summer, a rainy autumn – anything but ideal conditions for winegrowers. How sensitive to the weather do they have to be, how do they react to climate change? And what about the prices? A winemaker from a family business talks to ntv.de about it.
ntv.de: Mr. Becker, wine is a luxury food. One. which depends on the weather. What does the perfect wine-weather year look like?
Marco Becker: (Laughs) A nice, crisp, cold winter to contain pests, a spring that is slowly getting warmer, so that you don’t catch a sunburn in March. Emergence in mid-April. A not too hot but sunny summer. In between, always rain, i.e. evenly distributed precipitation. And then an autumn from mid-September, perfect for the grape harvest – five to six weeks – with cooler nights for the aroma ripening of the grapes. That would be a dream!
How was this year?
At least it got off to a very promising start: It was comparatively warm at the beginning of the year, so the budding of the vines started early and you already know that autumn and the harvest are coming quite early. As a rule, it takes around 100 days from the blossom to the ripe grapes. In the spring you already knew that for most varieties autumn would already start at the end of August.
A later reading would be better?
Absolutely! For us, early autumn still means warm August days. Then, for example, the rot can spread even faster. Later, as a rule, cooler weather and less fungal infestation also mean less rot, because the biological processes take longer. The grapes do not spoil so quickly.
But at the end of August, beginning of September the weather was rather rainy…
We had comparatively much rain, which is not ideal for the grape harvest. We also had a hailstorm that damaged part of the grapes. Rain and hail cost us five to ten percent of the harvest this year.
Are you still satisfied with the 2022 vintage?
It wouldn’t have needed the hail at the end. Rainfall in September was also twice as high as normal. Those were anything but ideal conditions for the grape harvest. But all in all it was a pretty good wine year for us. From that point of view I am satisfied.
The summer was comparatively warm again, like the years before. What does that mean for the grapes and for your work?
The grapes ripen earlier in warmer summers. The Öchsle degree, the sugar content of the grapes, increases and the wines ultimately have more alcohol and become heavier. However, the trend among customers is rather the opposite. The warmer summers are not a new phenomenon for us, nor do they come as a surprise: we have been dealing with climate change since the 1990s – and as winegrowers we initially benefited from it. In the meantime, however, everything has shifted too far: the harvest is currently taking place roughly four weeks earlier, no longer at the end of September, but at the end of August. This is accompanied by rising temperatures during the harvest. This year we drove out to the harvest at around 4 a.m. to avoid the midday heat if possible.
As a winegrower, how else can you react to climate change?
Viticulture is extremely complex. Everything takes time. In our family business, we try to react with some other, more heat-resistant grape varieties. We are traditionally located here in a top Riesling location. But now it’s much too warm for Riesling here. That’s why the vineyard itself is also moving north: Denmark, Sweden, even Norway are now growing wine. However, the upheaval or adjustment is taking place slowly. It is said that the normal rotation period in viticulture is 25 to 30 years. This is the time when a full vine conversion takes place.
So the white wine country of Germany will become a red wine country in the coming years and decades?
It will take time, but it will happen. The problem with this: red wine is available almost everywhere in the world. The competition for the then German red wine would be significantly greater. So far, the wine country Germany has benefited from its rather cool climate and German white wine has made a name for itself worldwide, also because the competition was not as great as with red wine. Climate change is ensuring that Germany is giving up its wine identity more and more and giving it away to the north.
Is this change also reflected in the prices?
No, not directly. It’s more the trend that sets the wine prices. There is a world market in the industrial wine sector, and German wine has not been able to keep up in price for a long time. Industrial wine are the wines that go into processing. Cheap grape juices or sparkling wine, for example, are mainly imported from other EU countries – Spain, Italy, France.
Should German winegrowers therefore focus more on the more lucrative bottle business?
At least that’s where many winegrowers and wineries want to go. We used to be a pure supplier for large wineries “fass wine growers”. However, we have been systematically reducing this area since the early 2000s. As a family business – my wife, my three sons and I – we now sell around 20 percent bottled wine, and the trend is steadily increasing. But this small family business couldn’t be run any other way: the average price for a bottle of wine in this country is just under 2.60 euros.
Keyword family business: What are the advantages?
First and foremost, of course, there is direct customer contact. This is unique in family businesses. The customers have a connection to us: They know us, the company, the family, the philosophy. You build a relationship, nurture it, and grow from it.
Direct customer contact is a plus, especially in today’s world of high inflation, fears of recession and rising energy prices…
Absolutely! It is not only the rising prices that have a negative effect as a cost factor. Availability is also a problem, for example with glass. Some bottles are already in stock to ensure bottling next year. The rising raw material and energy prices are particularly noticeable in crop protection. Here the prices have tripled in some cases. The doubling of the price of steel is also having an effect.
In what way?
In many places, the posts to which the vines are attached are no longer made of wood, because they would have to be replaced every three to five years with today’s qualities. Instead, many winegrowers, including us, use galvanized steel poles. Although they cost more, they can last for 30 to 40 years.
So the price of wine will increase?
Yes, although the order of magnitude cannot be precisely estimated at the moment. At the moment we are still selling at the old prices, we are selling off the vintages that have already been bottled, so to speak. But that will change in the coming year when we include the rising costs. But I think that the price increases will be limited. One must not forget that wine is not a basic food, but a luxury.
Thomas Badtke spoke to Marco Becker
