Wine Diary
60 years “Blooming Curve”
Congratulations on 60 years of the “Blooming Curve” of the Krems School of Viticulture! Since 1965, the flowering times of grapevines have been recorded and published in a diagram. Today, our grapevines bloom and ripen on average about 20 days earlier than in 1965; accordingly, they also ripen around three weeks earlier.
The same trend can be seen in the data from the Langenlois climate station of GeoSphere Austria. At bruendlmayer.at/klima, all vintages can be clicked through by average temperature, sunshine duration, and precipitation levels, and compared with historical data.
Currently, it is about 2.5 °C warmer than the historical average from 1970 to 2000. The Kamptal used to be considered a refined but mostly very cold wine-growing region. Now it is just moderately cool as a wine-growing area—perfect for us winemakers.
If the melting of ice were to disrupt the warm Gulf Stream, it could become uncomfortably cold again. Both a return to colder conditions and further warming would entail very serious disadvantages and high risks for winemakers, as well as for all life in the Kamptal. We would gladly do without the natural disasters caused so far by climate change—especially extreme rainfall—in the coming year!