Longtime Winemaker Sees El Niño Impacts on Vineyards and Harvest Schedules

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT)- Traditionally, today – a fall Friday – would be the first day of harvest for local wine growers.

Instead, due to the affects of El Niño, this is the last day of harvest; at least for the team at Margerum Wine Company.

We met up with Douglas Margerum, Owner and Director of Winemaking at Margerum Wine Co., in his tasting room on East Mason Street off lower State Street.

He called weather changes in recent years "dramatic." And, perhaps not in the way you might think.

Margerum said the last five years were the coldest vintages on record. 

He pointed to Santa Barbara County's unique topography: it is the only east-west running mountain range in North America. That means the local valleys – Santa Ynez Valley, Santa Maria Valley and, Los Alamos Valley – open directly to the ocean, which creates, what Margerum called "a incredible maritime influence."

"It'll be 85 or 90 during the day, it'll be 45 or 50 at night," said Margerum. "So, that really slows down the ripening, so you get longer hang times and the fruit develops at a more complex and interesting way to make wine."

This year, under climate changes from El Niño, conditions in the three local valleys are putting our region on an international wine map. Margerum is hearing similar things about the wine industry from other wine makers, journalists, and restaurateurs.

"It was such a surprise to have this wine region actually getting colder," said Margerum. "It's one of the only wine regions, overall, getting colder because of climate change."

Now, mix in warming trends from El Niño, and that's impacting this year's vintage and time-lines for growing and harvesting. 

"El Nino has affected this vintage tremendously. We started picking in very early August, some people were picking in July. We had one vintner in Santa Barbara County picking sparkling wine in June – which is absolutely unheard of. But, El Niño just created such a different change in the climate that we were getting bud break in February, which is also unheard of."

Normally, that happens at least one month later.

Margerum said climate impacts from El Niño in France are changing up wine laws, particularly in Champagne, to determine exactly which grapes can be planted and where.

Historic changes are also happening in the wine industry across the pond.

"You go across the channel into the southern England, they have the same soils," (as Champagne, France). "They're now growing sparkling wine with chardonnay and pinot noir, which would've been unheard of 20 years ago," said Margerum. "But, some of the wines coming out of that region are incredible because now they're the same climate that Champagne was."

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