Climate change brings challenges, and opportunities, to Finger Lakes wineries

Luminous clusters of riesling grapes still hung tight and low beneath the carefully pruned leaves in long rows of vines, while nearby more riesling, just picked, was being crushed and pressed, a steady rain of sweet-tart juice streaming into stainless steel vats, ready for fermentation. It was mid-harvest on Keuka Lake, and Fred Frank '79, wearing a Cornell ballcap, probably didn't have time to chat about climate change, but he was doing it anyway.

"We're better positioned for the future in what is considered a cold-climate region," Frank said. Where once getting fruit to ripen was a common struggle, Frank says increased ripeness now often results in wines with higher alcohol. The Finger Lakes region has seen a steady increase in growing degree days (GDDs, a measure of the warmth of a vintage), rising fromaround 2,400 GDDs in 2000 to 2,700 in 2020.

As for most agricultural products, climate change presents a raft of novel, and often unpredictable, hardships. But there are silver linings.

"We can now make the kinds of wines California made in the 1960s and 1970s," Frank said. "Cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc styles that are a little lower alcohol and go better with food."

That willingness to adapt to what works best is part of the DNA of Finger Lakes winemakers, and when it comes to managing climate change challenges to secure grape quality, long-term partnerships with Cornell researchers and technologies are key. Cornell researchers have developed softwarefor vineyard managers to collect and process spatial vineyard data to measure and respond to variation in environmental resources, vine growth and crop production. They have developed autonomous robots to roll through vineyards using computer vision to gather data on the physiological state of each grapevine, as well as launching phone appsthat measure cold hardiness, information that can be used to make decisions about pruning strategies during the dormant season. And they have debuted a weekly electronic newsletterput out by viticulture and enology extension personnel - all of this aimed at empowering growers and winemakers to make smart decisions in an increasingly volatile world.

The New York grape industry has been through some stuff. We're hardy and we've dealt with challenges," said Katie Gold, assistant professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology Section at Cornell AgriTech. "We don't have the luxury of growing grapes in Mediterranean climates and that's made us resilient. For example, through Cornell innovation we have some tremendous disease-resistant grapevines, full vines, not just root stock, producing wines that are identical to European varieties in quality."

She says Dr. Konstantin Frank and a small handful of wineries "built the modern vinifera industry in the FLX hand in hand with Cornell" with a forward-thinking embrace of innovation. She says the area is at the forefront of digital agriculture and viticulture, with Cornell leading in robotics, remote sensing, and other adaptive frameworks in the vineyard, and that there endures a pervasive culture of entrepreneurship.

Since 1958, four generations of the Frank family have been growing "noble" vitis vinifera grapes, the cornerstone of winemaking in the world's most famous wine regions. Konstantin Frank, ignited the vinifera winemaking revolution in the Finger Lakes, departing from the region's French hybrid and native grapes to compete ably with wines from Europe and elsewhere.

It is precisely that competition, that jockeying for dominance, accolades and top dollar, that hangs in the balance with climate change. Certain regions around the planet, known for particular grapes or blends, are imprinted with a telltale signature that is the confluence of soil and winds, history and myth. And yet, computer models have shownthat with global warming of 2 degrees Celsius, 56% of the world's wine-growing areas may no longer be suitable for growing wine; increase that to 4 degrees and an estimated 85% of grapes become raisins in the sun. Hotter summers, warmer winters, drought and violent weather events have caused experts to warn of decreased yields and crop failure, changing varietal character and, in some dire predictions, the extinction of some wines altogether.

We are going to see increased disease pressure," Gold said. "Winters will be milder, somewhat nicer for humans, but they won't kill off disease inoculum, the spores that initiate infection, the way they used to." This means pervasive problems like powdery and downy mildew will become more troublesome to deal with, she said.

Justine Vanden Heuvel, professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science, lists off some of the other challenges.

"There's so much variability both within and between growing seasons, with crazy amounts of heat and lots of precipitation, but then in 2016 we had a drought. There was a massive frost/freeze in May of 2023 that hit 50% or more of the acreage," she said.

She explains that 30 years ago grape vines would acclimate to winter's cold, essentially going dormant. With warmer winters, grape vines come out of their dormant state earlier. Bud break, when the plants begin new growth for the spring, is happening a couple weeks earlier, making grapevines more susceptible to late spring frosts.

"That's not a good situation," Vanden Heuvel said. But there are more good years for red wines now in the Finger Lakes due to more heat for ripening, she said.

"Businesses that are selling a lot of wine in the tasting room to tourists have to offer both whites and reds - 2016, 2020 and 2022 were all really good years for reds in the Finger Lakes. Thirty years ago, the region didn't have three hot years in a decade to really ripen reds," she said.

She doesn't see a future crowded with cabernet sauvignon and merlot in the Finger Lakes, however.

Hybrid grapes, which can withstand more weather extremes and can be more resistant to disease, she says, "are the future for a resilient wine industry. That's what's going to enable New York producers to continue to have a robust industry here."

Stephen Taylor, sales manager at Bully Hill Vineyards in Hammondsport, says the region needs those hybrids, but also indigenous varieties like Concord as well as those vinifera grapes, as a hedge against the challenges of climate change. Replacing varieties with more climatically suitable varieties, called cultivar turnover, increases resilience to climate change. But it can also accommodate changing consumer tastes.

"Some people really believe in having just a couple varietals because it's easier to scale and purchase. But there are downsides: what if that varietal goes out of fashion? Tastes come and go," he said. White zinfandel begat chardonnay, which may have been nudged out of the way by malbec and summer's rose-all-day, etc.

For those wine regions known for a single grape varietal or wine style, climate change poses nearly impossible challenges to maintain a recognizable identity. Vanden Heuvel says the Finger Lakes region is freer.

"The Finger Lakes wine industry doesn't have a set style that they need to be producing, or a type that people are specifically looking for. Napa, Sonoma, Willamette Valley - their wines have a typicity that people expect. Consumers don't necessarily have that for New York wines, and that gives us flexibility," she said.

Growers in hot, dry climates are adopting new growing techniques, like removing the primary grape cluster so the secondary one is the one that gets turned into wine so you can push off ripening. Growers are leaving a bit more canopy, carrying a bigger fruit crop to delay ripening, or picking earlier. In 2021, Bordeaux approved six new grape varieties to help adapt to climate change. In the long run, adaptations like this may not be enough.

For Jason Londo, associate professor of fruit physiology at Cornell AgriTech, another factor in the Finger Lakes wine region's future is how untenable things get elsewhere. Some growers are looking around for new places that are cool and wet enough to grow successfully. For instance, Champagne is considering England as a new venue for high-quality sparkling wines.

"Some viticultural production may move to this area," Londo said, an area he said is known as a climate refuge. "That will be beneficial for the area."

In the way Michigan is increasing acreage of apple orchards as growers find it trickier to grow them elsewhere, big companies like E.&J. Gallo Winery have invested in New York.

"These are people who have the money to dabble and develop new technologies," Londo said.

The biggest calling card is what's in the bottle - is this climate consistently enabling growers to produce great wines?

This year, said, Gregory Loeb, a professor in the Department of Entomology at Cornell AgriTech, the answer seems to be a resounding yes.

Even though he sees some insect and disease challenges on the horizon, if this is the new normal, climate change will likely impact New York viticulture in New York in some positive ways.

"This year was warmer and dry in the critical period. The vines were ahead of schedule because it was warm with fairly low rain," he said. "This year was fantastic."