🌿 Warm climate

A warm climate means conditions with long, hot summers. Grapes ripen easily and quickly here and gather a lot of sugar. Such places exist in southern Europe, Australia, California, Chile and other regions. A warm climate differs from a continental one in that winters are milder and temperature swings are smaller.

Wines from warm places are usually ripe, soft and full. They have plenty of fruit flavour, like jam or dried fruit, soft tannins and less acidity. With so much sugar, more alcohol results after fermentation: the wine can be noticeably stronger. For this reason wines from hot areas often reach 14% alcohol and above.

Growers in such a climate need to keep freshness. To do this they plant vines at altitude, choose late-ripening varieties and harvest early, at night or at dawn. A warm climate is one type of vineyard climate. Warming makes it more and more common in places that used to be cool.