Dan, Hi....

I am not going to get into the global warming controversy except to comment that doomsday theories have been around for a long, long time.  For at least four centuries people have been convinced that Venice would soon be under water; the Little Ice Age that struck Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries had no measurable impact on the wine industry; and San Francisco has yet to fall into the Pacific Ocean. Despite all of which, Chicken Little continues to run around claiming that "the sky is fallilng".  It is not!!!! 

As to Israel's wine industry - we survived two mini-ice ages and the Moslem occupation that brought winemaking to a several centuries long halt.  Methinks we shall survive this as well.

And let us keep in mind that most scientists feel that global warm has either stopped or "taken a break" as there have been no significantly measurable changes in temperatures since 2000. 

And now, so help me, I am going to keep my mouth shut about the global warming phenomenon. 

Best

Rogov

I believe that global warming is a real and serious phenomemon, and something that wineries will have to deal with.  Hopefully it will not get to the point where it causes major upheavel though.

In regards to Israeli wine, I don't know a lot about the science of winemaking, but I didn't interpret the higher alcohol levels in some Israeli wines as necessarily rising temperatures, I thought it could be the result of winemaking decisions.  For example, maybe winemakers are choosing to harvest the grapes with higher sugar levels than previously.  I don't know though.

OK, this is of special interest to me since I entered wine back into 1985 through the door of Geography. I think any doubters of the effects of global warming should sit down for a viewing of "The Inconvenient Truth".... the jury is in... almost every scientist agrees that global warming is occurring and tha's why the Kyoto accords were so widely accepted. The Bush Administration and their ties to the oil industry were most certainly disingenuos in saying the jury was still out and by the end of his administration they were qualifying much earlier denials.

This is a great topic again for the winemakers to chirp in on. Are they picking the grapes earlier to get more acidity and less alcohol (sugar) to compensate? What regions will this affect the most and could it create new wine regions unable to grow good grapes previously?

This one is right up my alley as I was to be a meteorologist/climatologist in the US Navy and became a bit of an expert on Koppen's classifications on climates ( a Russian/ German Jew by the way who perished in the camps at a ripe age of 93)

Ok how many of you winos out there new about the Koppen classification of climates?  check under Csa or Csb for many if not most wine regions Wikepedia has a good primer by the way

in Israel I think most of the better winemakers from what they've told me are going after lower alcohol levels and increased acidity which in warmer regions tends to be lacking

I think Yair & Assaf Margalit or Gil & Ido at Recanati could speak volumes on this. Yair and Gil both attended UC Davis which has mapped many regions based on weather and which grapes would grow there and I think both wineries have done early harvests to boost acidity.

I wish we could get some input from some winemakers, but it seems they are all super busy with their harvest. I will see if I can get any of them ot respond to this question. btw, when does the harvest season end?

it differs for every winery depending on it's vineard location and grape variety and style of wine being made but the harvest season starts in July and goes into November