This Napa vineyard looks totally weird. Here’s why it could help fight climate change

Until you take a closer look, Mark Neal’s vineyard looks more or less like any other in Rutherford, the prestigious growing region at the geographic center of Napa Valley.

But step into a row of its vines, which are shrouded in lush green canopies at this time of year, and it starts to look stranger. Where there should be a single vine, there are two: a succession of bunches of red grapes suspended above a layer of white bunches.

This unorthodox trellis system is a bulwark against climate change, Neal said. Rutherford is hot and getting hotter, a situation Neal finds difficult for growing high-quality white grapes, which are more susceptible to sunburn than their red counterparts. But he did not want to completely give up growing white grapes. So he decided to create “natural umbrellas,” as he put it, letting the red vines and their leaves act as a protective shield.

It’s the latest example of a Napa Valley winemaker making major agricultural change in response to climate change, which threatens to alter the way grapes grow and wines taste around the world in decades to come. In Napa, a county whose agricultural output was worth $746 million last year, the stakes are especially high, and the drive to adapt to a warmer future can sometimes seem at odds with business realities here. Calls to replace the valley’s signature wine, Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, with warmer climate – but commercially unpopular – grapes like Alicante Bouschet and Touriga Nacional are often met with disbelief.

vineyard to this unusual trellis system as a hedge against climate change.”/>

Mark Neal started planting red grapes over white grapes in 1997. Now he is converting his entire vineyard to this unusual trellis system as a hedge against climate change.

Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

Neal’s approach is “definitely something new for Napa,” said UC Davis viticulture specialist S. Kaan Kurtural. (According to Kurtural, there are vineyards in Chile that use a similar type of stacked trellis.) And as temperatures rise, people may be on the hunt for something new. Other winemakers have been showing up unannounced at Neal’s vineyard recently, Neal said, hoping to catch a glimpse.

“This thing is becoming a tourist trap for farmers,” he said.

Some other landowners are now even asking Neal – who grows grapes for 92 other wineries as part of his vineyard management company, Jack Neal & Son – to install the system on their properties. This summer, he did just that at Burgess Cellars’ Saint Andrews Vineyard in Napa’s Oak Knoll district.

Burgess winemaker Meghan Zobeck, who planted the entire vineyard with climate change in mind, had never seen this style of trellis before. “We thought we could try this as a way to conserve resources,” she said, using “the canopy of the (Cabernet) to shade the (Sauvignon Blanc) and retain the acids that we covet in the grapes”.

Whether or not the dual-varietal trellis system, as Neal has dubbed it, becomes the norm in Napa Valley, Neal thinks it’s urgent that Napa winemakers realize they’re going to have to change the way they grow – maybe drastically, and maybe quite soon.


Vineyard workers dig holes to plant new Greek grape varieties at Neal Family Vineyards.

Vineyard workers dig holes to plant new Greek grape varieties at Neal Family Vineyards.

Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

When Neal was growing up in Rutherford, grapes weren’t the only cash crop. His family, who bought this property in 1966, maintained a walnut orchard, vegetable gardens and farm animals. The small amount of grapes they grew consisted of now-old-fashioned varieties like French Berger and Colombard, as well as Napa Gamay (now known as Valdiguie).

Neal has witnessed and participated in the gradual transformation of Napa from a place of diversified agriculture to a relative monoculture. He and his father started their winery management business in the late 1960s, and today Neal is responsible for operating approximately 1,800 acres across Napa. (Virtually all of that acreage is organic, and about 720 acres are certified biodynamic.) Eventually, he bought a 25-acre property on Howell Mountain, but he kept the original family ranch in Rutherford.

When Neal first installed a double trellis in his vineyard in 1997, he was not concerned about climate change. He just wanted to make sure he could sell his product: grapes. Rutherford, here on the flat bottom of the valley, has always been sunny, and in the past Neal had seen some wineries reject Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay grapes from nearby vineyards because the berries had “too much amber”, he remembers.

That is, the green berries were mottled with brown freckles, an indication of sunburn, which can diminish the quality of the resulting wine. With too much sun, grapes can develop compounds such as kaempferol, Kurtural explained, which can make the fruit taste astringent or turn it into a raisin.

The standard way to prevent sunburn is to drape a UV-blocking cloth over the fruit, but Neal was concerned that these shade cloths would retain too much moisture, which could introduce mildew. So he wondered, “How can I grow white grapes in Rutherford without putting shade cloth and getting the amber?”

Vineyard workers dig holes to plant young vines.

Vineyard workers dig holes to plant young vines.

Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

On a 2-acre section of his vineyard, he tried a double trellis, layering Sauvignon Blanc vines with Zinfandel. For the first few years, Neal wasn’t sure it would work. The Sauvignon Blanc began to crawl through the Zin, disrupting the higher level plants. But eventually he dialed the protocol and he liked the effects: because they received less direct sunlight, the white grapes took longer to ripen, allowing them to develop more flavor. There never was amber.

He also realized that the dual system had some environmental benefits. By irrigating two vines at once, he could use less water. Each tractor pass could be more efficient, resulting in less greenhouse gas emissions.

For about 20 years he kept the system confined to this small area of ​​his 18-acre vineyard, adopting more familiar methods throughout the rest of the property. But in recent years, with warmer temperatures, severe drought and increased pest pressure, Neal decided to make a bigger change. From 2020, he is converting his entire Rutherford vineyard to the double trellising system.

This time he wasn’t just planting Sauvignon Blanc. The lower rows of his vines now include white varietals rarely seen in Napa Valley, such as Fiano, Vermentino, Melon and Albariño. In a nod to his Greek heritage – his maternal grandmother is from Crete – he will soon be planting Assyrtiko, the main grape variety of Santorini. While most of the top tier reds are Cabernet Sauvignon, there is also a section of the Agiorgitiko Greek red. Many of these grapes are grown in warm regions near the Mediterranean, making them attractive candidates for a warming climate.

The red grapes act as a “natural umbrella” for the more delicate white grapes planted below.

The red grapes act as a “natural umbrella” for the more delicate white grapes planted below.

Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

The blend is commercially risky in the Neal zip code, where Cabernet Sauvignon grapes can fetch such a high price — going into wines that cost $200 or more per bottle — that many farmers don’t bother growing anything else. thing. In fact, very little white wine is produced from Rutherford: white grapes (almost entirely Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay) make up only 14% of the appellation’s acreage, according to data provided by the Rutherford Dust Society. Cabernet Sauvignon comprises 71%.

Neal acknowledged that it would be hard to justify planting such grapes if he had to sell them rather than use them for his own winery, Neal Family Vineyards. His Vermentino, the first of the newly planted whites to come out, might persuade some naysayers to reconsider this southern Italian variety. Neal’s 2021 Vermentino is rich and long, with a taste of lemon buttercream and fennel. It has all the nuance and verve that many drinkers seek in Napa Chardonnays, along with a proven track record in warm Mediterranean climates.

Even if Napa Valley never becomes Vermentino country, however, Neal predicts the dual-grape trellis system could eventually become mainstream. The call will depend in part on how seriously Napa winemakers take the threat of climate change.

Kurtural, the UC Davis scientist, thinks it will be easier to get farmers to change something like a trellis than to abandon Cabernet. “There’s not a lot of appetite for new varieties right now,” he said.

But it has already become common to move away from vertical shoot positioning, the dominant trellis system of the past half-century, which was designed to maximize sun exposure on grapes. This sun exposure might have been welcome in the 1980s and 1990s, but not anymore. Later this year, UC Davis will release a set of recommended new trellis designs that will promote shading.

Perhaps the appeal of Neal’s wacky trellis to other farmers will simply be financial. The average yield from a Napa Valley vineyard is usually around 5 tons per acre. (Last year, due to the drought, it was exceptionally low, at less than 3 tons per acre.) Neal said his double trellis allowed him to harvest 12 to 15 tons per acre. These calculations may be enough to pique the interest of some growers.

Neal compared it to the considerations involved in city planning. “Everyone in the Valley just wants to expand horizontally,” he said. Yet Napa is not infinite. To keep the vineyards here viable, especially for grapes other than Cabernet Sauvignon, he said, it’s time to think about building up.

Esther Mobley is the principal wine critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @Esther_mobley

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