<body><p>STORY: For the past two decades, climate change has helped make a small town in Japan the toast of Pinot Noir connoisseurs.</p><p>With warming temperatures, locals in Yoichi, on the country’s northernmost island of Hokkaido, were encouraged to try their hand at making wine with the delicate grape variety.</p><p>But now, farmers fear that even warmer temperatures and potentially more rain could threaten their future.</p><p>:: THIS EARTH</p><p>:: Yoichi, Japan</p><p>As summer heat persisted in Yoichi in September, Yuichi Hirotsu, an award-winning vineyard owner, said his Pinot Noir grapes had suffered from rain damage.</p><p>:: Yuichi Hirotsu, Vineyard owner</p><p>“If we get heavy rain right before the harvest, the grapes will crack and become more prone to disease. As global warming progresses, wine grapes start getting different diseases such as downy mildew, along with all sorts of other issues. Pests also become more of a problem as well.”</p><p>He also grows other grape varieties suited to Hokkaido’s mild climate.</p><p>But they too were hard hit by a particularly heavy downpour in September – something Hirotsu says he hasn’t seen before at the start of the fall season. </p><p>Known for producing elegant wines, Pinot Noir grapes can thrive in cool to warm temperate climates, but its thin skin and tight clusters make it extremely sensitive even to slightly too much sun or rain.</p><p>This year, Yoichi had its hottest summer since record-keeping began, with average temperatures of almost 72 degrees Farenheit between June and August.</p><p>That’s more than 5 degrees higher than the average for the three decades to 2020. </p><p>Warmer and longer summer seasons increase the chances that Pinot Noir grapes could ripen too quickly, leading to undesirably high sugar and low acid levels.</p><p>Higher temperatures also make the fruit more prone to damage from rain.</p><p>”It’s been almost 30 years since I started growing grapes, and it is indeed that summers are much hotter now than they were back then, and the nights feel warmer too.”</p><p>Yoichi burst into the viticultural limelight five years ago, when a wine from the local Domaine Takahiko winery was featured on the menu of Copenhagen’s globally acclaimed Noma restaurant.</p><p>A bottle of that prized wine, which once sold for around $30, is now offered by resellers in Japan for about $560. </p><p>Takahiko Soga, owner of Domaine Takahiko, said continued climate change could mean Pinot Noir has to be swapped for more heat-friendly grapes</p><p>:: Takahiko Soga, Owner of Domaine Takahiko</p><p>”As global warming progresses, we’ve been trying out different varieties such as Syrah, Merlot, and others, by planting just a few vines of each for now, to see how things might develop. We’re testing things in our own way to figure out where we are heading in the future.”</p></body>
