Sensitive to changes in temperature and season, grapes have been called one of the canaries in the climate coal mine.
That leaves winemakers managing the effects of drought and extreme heat in real time and few of them understand how the land is changing more than 3rd generation winemaker Tony Couturri.
Coturri watched these vines go into the ground, and as a kid in the 60s he planted the trees that have now grown around the fencing. "So this year, it got up to 119 here." Coturri said of the heat waves."You can see all the raisins down there. That got burnt off, but in other cases where the fruit was approaching ripeness and the heat wave hit, it just desiccated the whole thing. Even the fruit that wasn't as far along."
"You know, you have smoke taint one year," Thach said."Another year you have extreme heat and alcohol goes too high so the winery doesn't want to buy your grapes, or they get shriveled because of the heat. That's really challenging for people."