Italian winemakers look to new technologies with old grape varieties to adapt to a changing climate

Massimo Tosoni paces through and through his vineyards, the rows stretching the likes of ribbons of william green below a relentless solarise. In the distance, the town of Tarquinia sits on a hilltop once ruled by the ancient Etruscans.

“Look at the rows of vineyards there,” he said, gesturing past a local red grape, Ciliegiolo, known for its cherry-like aroma. “The earth is as dry and hard as stone.”

The 73-year-old shakes his head. It’s the result of soil unwatered for too long, where the sun has sucked out every last drop of life, blocking reabsorption of water.

Italy’s vineyards, like much of the world’s, are grappling with summers that are hotter and longer, erratic weather and dwindling water.

These shifts are forcing winemakers to rethink one of the oldest assumptions in their craft: terroir, the delicate interplay of soil, sun, wind, rain and human touch that gives each wine its specific taste, some might say, soul.

If global temperatures rise more than 2 C by century’s end, studies suggest up to 90 per cent of Italy’s lowland and coastal wine regions — about one-third of the country’s wine growing territory — could become unsuitable for viticulture, with similar risks for most of the world’s vineyards.

Italy is a top global wine producer, with its industry worth $20.7 billion Cdn and representing 10 per cent of the country’s agri-food economy. Before U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on the European Union, exports totalled a record $12 billion Cdn in 2024, driven by premium and certified wines, even as producers faced climate extremes: drought in the south and hail and torrential downpours in the north. 

In northern Lazio, the region around Rome that produces about three per cent of Italian wine, Tosoni, and his daughter, Martina Tosoni, 42, who returned to the farm after working in tourism in Spain, are among the thousands of producers already adapting.

Their white grapes, Trebbiano, Malvasia, Vermentino and Vioner, once harvested in October, now ripen by late August.

“Last year we waited too long and because of climate change lost a third of our harvest,” said Massimo.

'Cooked by the sun'

Nearby producers have begun swapping the local Sangiovese and Montepulciano reds with the heat-tolerant Syrah, which was once grown mostly on the southern island of Sicily.

Martina said the lack of water, more than heat, is now the greatest threat.

“There’s a huge generational leap in awareness about efficient use of water,” she said. 

She and other producers have introduced irrigation rotations to prevent shortages and upgraded their systems to minimize waste. Younger growers like her may also be tech-savvy and better equipped to access government grants for irrigation and other climate challenges.

“I use an app to oversee irrigation,” she said. “I check on it from my room, whereas my dad used to have to get up four times a night to check the filters.”

Still, an old, mostly abandoned technique of grafting the local grapes onto wild vines is proving especially resilient, her father said.

“That row of Trebbiano white grapes is as old as Martina and is doing just fine.” 

Martina believes community is as crucial as innovation. She and local producers, who already have a co-op for fruit, are forming a consortium for wine where they can plan together to strengthen marketing and vititourism, a vital form of diversification in increasingly difficult circumstances. 

“If the leadership is forward-looking like ours, it makes a huge difference. We’re helping all producers, not just one, adapt.”

Kimberly Nicholas, a sustainability scientist at Lund University in Sweden, has studied the link between wine and climate change for more than two decades and says adapting to a shifting climate is now top of mind for every wine producer.

“The biggest change,” she said, “is that it’s understood and recognized by everyone in the wine industry that this is happening. It’s not some potential future or something that will happen elsewhere.”

Grapes now ripen earlier, at higher temperatures, which she says damages “all the special compounds that make the most delicious wines unique.” 

The result: less acid, more sugar, higher alcohol — and a flatter flavour.

Some of that excess alcohol can be removed in the winery. But vineyard strategies work better: shade cloths strung over vineyards, traditional trellising that leaves more foliage to shade the fruit, and replanting rows in directions that reduce direct sun exposure.

Nicholas is skeptical of those who propose expanding production of wine in northern countries as part of the solution.

“I don’t think that’s a very smart way to look at wine growing in the future,” she said. “This idea that you can just pick up Napa Valley and move it to Alaska is really naïve.”

Even climbing higher on hills or mountains has limits.

“With climate change, plants and animals are running out of elevation,” she said.

Some producers are experimenting with vitivoltaic solar panels that generate power and provide shade or reviving some of the mostly forgotten grape varieties that fare better in a hotter world.

“The majority of global wine production comes from 12 varieties of grapes,” Nicholas said. 

“The wine industry would be well-served to broaden the use of the huge untapped biological diversity and thousands of cultivated varieties of grapes,” to speed up ripening.

In Tuscany, Lamberto Frescobaldi — whose family has made wine for 700 years — views the upheaval as an opportunity for intelligent adaptation.

Water, he said, is now Tuscany’s most precious resource. He said the region needs more water reservoirs like Bilancino Lake north of Florence, built in the 1960s, that can release water to sustain vines when rivers run low.

“In Tuscany, we’re planting north-facing vineyards and selecting rootstocks that grow deeper to access soil moisture,” Frescobaldi said. “It’s crucial in the first years when young plants have shallow roots and need the most water.”

His family is also planting at higher elevations, where frost and temperature drops can strike without warning. To mitigate the risk, they’re investing in machines that circulate warm air above the vines to prevent freezing.

Their grape mix is shifting, as well. Frescobaldi now grows heat-resistant Vermentino and carefully matches other varieties to their best new niches.

“Every year someone says, ‘Oh my God! We’re picking Pinot Grigio at the end of July,’” he said. “I mean, is the climate changing? Yes. But the real question is, are we now planting Pinot Grigio in the right place?”

Still, these adaptations unsettle centuries of tradition — and strain Italy’s Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (Controlled and Guaranteed Designation of Origin), the legal framework meant to preserve each wine’s regional identity.

Wine styles and traditions will inevitably change, said Kimberly Nicolas, a loss that is already underway.

“I have a bottle of Pinot Noir from when I was doing my PhD and I don’t know if I’ll ever bring myself to drink it because it’s a flavour disappearing from this Earth and I’m not sure I’ll ever find it again.”

Rome correspondent

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