christine sevillano: from 1700. >> stahl: 1700. >> sevillano: yes. >> stahl: christine sevillano took over the family business and its 20 acres of vines 14 years ago. she's the tenth generation. >> sevillano: this is the cellar of my grandfather. >> stahl: oh. after surviving the french revolution and two world wars, her family's house of piot- sevillano faced its worst year ever in 2021. >> sevillano: we lost 90% of our harvest. >> stahl: 90%? >> sevillano: yes. >> stahl: how many bottles were you able to produce this year, as opposed to a normal year? >> sevillano: a normal year, i produce around 40,000, 50,000 bottles. >> stahl: and this year? >> sevillano: zero. it's the first time in the history of my winery that we will not make champagne. >> stahl: not a single bottle from this winery? >> sevillano: yes, yes. >> stahl: higher temperatures and extreme weather episodes devastated not only her harvest, but much of champagne's. >> sevillano: it rained in two or three days that it rained normally in one month. even my father told me that in his career he has never seen that. >> stahl: almost flood-like? >> sevillano: yes. >> stahl: the worst of it, she says, came in june and july, when the heat and the rains resulted in a more crippling outbreak than usual of funguses, like mildew contamination. >> sevillano: in fact, when the grapes are contaminated, the-- the fruit is drying. and after, we can't use it, because there is no juice, nothing. >> stahl: and you attribute this to climate change? >> sevillano: yes. because it was so extreme. it's not normal. >> stahl: last year's extreme weather not only battered champagne and the foundation of its economy, but nearly every one of the wine-producing regions in france-- burgundy to bordeaux, where some of the highest quality, best-known and best-tasting reds and whites are made. and these are what grape? what, what-- >> jacques lurton: this is merlot. >> stahl: merlot! i love merlot. >> lurton: yeah, merlot makes a beautiful, soft-rounded wines. >> stahl: jacques lurton, the head of a wine family dynasty, runs the chateau la louviere and several other wineries in bordeaux. he says vine disease is getting worse all over france because of the rising temperatures. >> lurton: we don't have winters anymore, almost. in wintertime, normally you get colder conditions. these cool conditions tend to kill the funguses or the disease. so normally, winter cleans the situation, you see? but the most important problem that we have is what we call spring frost. >> stahl: spring frost was so severe in april last year that winegrowers were on their knees lighting bales of hay and candles between their vines in a mostly futile attempt to protect their young buds. >> lurton: it is the largest catastrophe we have ever suffered. because, before, we had some spring frost in some regions, but this is the first time we have it all over france. now, due to the fact that we don't have these very strong winters, the buds start to open, and then expose themself to this series of spring frost that we have. >> stahl: and that is the crux-- >> lurton: and that, you see, is what affect the most the quantity of the grapes. >> stahl: so, tell us about this year, in terms of the amount. >> lurton: in average, in france this year, a loss of 30%. >> stahl: 30% of the yields. and what about you? what's your percent? >> lurton: and us, we have been affected up to 40%. >> stahl: so, you're one of the largest wine producers in bordeaux. 40% loss. i mean, that's enormous. >> lurton: it's huge. it's huge. >> stahl: for bordeaux, he estimates a loss of roughly $800 million in sales last year. is this something that's happening all over europe or-- or just france? >> greg jones: no. it's happening all over europe, definitely. >> stahl: greg jones is a research climatologist with southern oregon university, who for 25 years has specialized in the study of how climate influences the growing and harvesting of wine grapes. >> jones: what we're seeing today is, we're seeing more of these extreme events happening more frequently at greater degrees and causing more problems. >> stahl: yeah, we see it everywhere. it's not just in farm regions. i mean, every part of our country is experiencing some extreme weather condition. so, how do you know it isn't that "normal" extreme weather, as opposed to a general climate change? >> jones: there's an area in climate science called attribution science.tribn nc a ouyio oan understand how much role humans have in the game of climate. so, the idea-- >> stahl: or who to attribute it to, okay. >> jones: yeah, yeah. so, what climatologists do is, we develop models that look at aspects of climate. and those models that are coming out are really telling us more and more that, in the absence of humans, most of these things would not occur to the same degree they're occurring today. >> stahl: tie what you're saying about climate to what's going on in france now. >> jones: sure. in-- in-- in france, just like most of europe, temperatures have gone up. summers have gotten dryer. and wine grapes are just sensitive. they're sensitive to those kind of changes, and-- and we've been seeing it worldwide. and europe has been at the epicenter of it. >> stahl: this weather map of europe for june 2021, the second-warmest june in europe on record, shows a red band depicting high surface air temperatures stretching across much of the continent. heat waves were also recorded over western north america in june 2021. scorching temperatures and drought conditions contributed to wildfires in 2020 around napa and sonoma, the center of america's wine industry, where fields were left blackened. in australia, the bush fires of 2019 and '20 burnt some vineyards to the ground, while smoke ruined the quality of the grapes. in 2017, in italy, spring frost, combined with hailstorms and a heat wave known as "lucifer," led to the lowest harvest in decades. particularly hard hit was northern and central italy, where prosecco, barolo and chianti are made. and in parts of chile and argentina, higher temperatures are pushing wine-growers to plant their vineyards at higher altitudes, where temperatures are cooler. greg jones says the warming atmosphere is also changing the grapes' growth cycle. >> jones: it accelerates that ripening to the point that we're picking earlier. for example, 2020, in burgundy, the picking date was august 20. and prior to that, we've been averaging for the last 30 years, about september 15. and then, for 600 years before that, we were averaging the end of september, first of october. so, you can-- >> stahl: oh, so it's dramatic. >> jones: so it's pretty dramatic. >> stahl: these pages of parchment, documenting harvest dates going back as far as 1354, were found in the church of notre dame in burgundy. 1354. >> jones: it's a wonderful data record that we've been able to look at to better understand what climates were like back then, how it affected harvests, and what that looks like today. >> stahl: i'm smiling because i'm thinking, 1300s. i'm thinking, the monks were making wine. >> jones: well, exactly. >> stahl: the wine industry in france is so vital to the economy that the government has scientists studying ways to adapt and mitigate the changing environment. one route to adaptation is to introduce new grape varieties. experimental vineyards have been planted with vines from warmer- climate countries to see if they can grow here, so the grapes can be blended in with the merlots, cabernets and other french wines. nathalie ollat is the director of the project at the bordeaux science institute of vine and wine. so, you're looking at grapes that come from southern regions that maybe grow better in warmer climates? >> nathalie ollat: yes. >> stahl: like from where? >> ollat: from spain, from portugal, from greece. >> stahl: how many are you actually looking at? >> ollat: so, in this experimental vineyard, we are studying 52 different varieties. >> stahl: they've chosen six of those varieties thus far to be planted in bordeaux. so, this is your greenhouse? >> ollat: yes. this-- it is. >> stahl: a second route of adaptation is genetic breeding. are you actually creating new grapes; new, different kinds of grapes? >> ollat: yes. the idea is to have grapes, new varieties which can be resistant to disease and also more adapted to climate change condition. >> stahl: and do not compromise the distinctive qualities of the french wines. athe institute's labor scientists are stug the genetics of wine's color, aroma and taste. and that's what you're trying to preserve even as you introduce new grapes? >> ollat: yes. i think we-- we want to change without changing, i would say. >> stahl: yes! how confident are you that you're going to crack the puzzle; you're going to figure out how to stay ahead of climate change? >> ollat: all together, with new varieties, new growing practice, i think we can-- we can cope with climate change, at least until the-- the middle of the 21st century. >> stahl: the middle of the century is only 30 years from now. >> ollat: yeah, yeah. >> stahl: so, you're looking at how fast temperatures are rising, and you're saying it's possible that they will rise above a point where you can't... >> ollat: that it-- it-- it will be much more complicated to keep what we call bordeaux style and bordeaux taste. >> stahl: with all the gloom and doom about warming temperatures in wine country, there's actually a surprising upside. what about quality? what about the taste? what's important about wine? how is climate change affecting that? >> lurton: alors, the climate change is affecting the quality very positively. >> stahl: positively? >> lurton: yes, ex-- exactly. we have never seen such a large quantity of good vintages of bordeaux wines. >> stahl: well, explain that. that's counterintuitive. >> lurton: thanks to the global warming and the climate change, now we have warmer summers and which means that our grapes are ripening better. if we get good, warm conditions, we have good color quantity in the-- in the skin. but, as well, we have the right amount of sugar. >> stahl: what a painful irony-- the taste improves just as the yields are shrinking for winemakers like christinemore quality, but fewer grapes. dramatically fewer grapes. >> sevillano: yes. it's crazy. >> stahl: if you have another year like this one, financially, can you survive? >> sevillano: it will be difficult. really, really difficult. but at the same time, i'm trustful for next year. i mean, i'm trustful. i have to. >> stahl: improved taste is not the only unforeseen benefit of climate change for some winemakers. how it's affecting the bubbly you are likely to enjoy at the next celebration or romantic dinner, when we return. 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