Sir, – John Wilson’s article (“Now for something different”, Drink, Magazine, January 7th), informing us that German wines are improving due to warmer temperatures and that it may become too warm to produce quality Reisling there, has raised many eyebrows.
It is rather typical of how the issue of global warming is little understood.
The average increase in world temperature over the past one hundred and sixty years is 0.81 of a degree Celsius. Hardly enough for us or plants to notice. The trend has been towards milder winters in northern Europe and hotter summers in southern Europe, neither of which are going to have any impact on the grapes in Pfalz.
Incidentally, Germany has not, as Mr Wilson suggests, only recently begun to produce good Pinot Noir. German Pinot Noir has a reputation going back to the 16th century when they are mentioned with esteem in Shakespearean plays. Some of us have favoured the German and Austrian spätburgunders (Pinot Noir) for a long time now. Producers such as Carl Ehrhard in Rudeshiemer and Adenauer in Ahr are current examples of excellent spätburgunder. – Yours, etc,