Back to Basics: Climate - How it Affects Grapes and Wine | Corkbuzz ...

Applying this concept to your everyday wine choices will go a long way in helping you pick out a wine you like: The warmer the weather, the riper the grapes can get.

So even if you are growing the same grape (say, Chardonnay) in two different areas (for example, California’s Napa Valley and northern France’s Chablis, in the Burgundy region), you’ll get very different results. Soil differences aside, Napa simply gets much hotter than Chablis, which will make for riper grapes come harvest time.

 

This becomes especially relevant to winemaking because as grapes gets riper, the amount of sugar increases… and, conversely, the perception of acidity decreases. It’s the same with any fruit. If it’s green and underripe, it tastes tart or sour (think: green tomatoes); if it’s perfectly ripe, it has peak sweetness but also a little bit of tartness to balance it out; if the fruit is overripe, it tastes super-sweet and almost cooked or jam-like. The key is to pick the fruit when it’s just right.

Cooler climates, generally speaking, sit further north in the northern hemisphere or further south in the southern hemisphere. Higher altitude areas also tend to have cooler overall climates (think about how much cooler it is at the top of the mountain than on the valley floor). And finally, areas closer to the ocean usually have maritime climates that are cooled down by their proximity to the large body of water (Sonoma Coast, for example, is much cooler than Napa because it is right on the water, whereas Napa is an hour and a half inland and far from the cool ocean breezes).

Knowing this, you can guess that the Chardonnay grapes from Napa Valley will be sweeter, and those from Chablis in northern France will probably be less sweet and a bit more tart.

So. Does this mean that the Napa Chardonnay will be sweet and the Chablis will be dry? No. We have to remember that the grapes get turned into wine (refer back to our post on Fermentation) and are fermented totally dry in both cases (the yeast eats all the sugar). The major difference? The Napa grape juice has more sugar for the yeast to eat, which means when the yeast are done eating, there will be more alcohol left in the wine. The Chablis grape juice has more acidity and a little less sugar, so the resultant wine will be more tart and have a little less alcohol.

If you like a wine that’s richer, the Napa Chardonnay would be a great choice. If you like a wine that’s lighter and a bit more crisp, the Chablis would be a good bet. In our next Back to Basics post, we’ll discuss how the fruit flavors can also vary based on climate…