Leading Spanish Winemaker Looking For New, Cooler Location At Higher Altitude: "I Don't Know How Long We Can Stay Here"

[hatrack]

A leading European winemaker has warned it may have to abandon its ancestral lands in Catalonia in 30 years’ time because climate change could make traditional growing areas too dry and hot. Familia Torres is already installing irrigation at its vineyards in Spain and California and is planting vines on land at higher altitudes as it tries to adapt to more extreme conditions.

“Irrigation is the future. We do not rely on the weather,” said its 83-year-old president, Miguel Torres. “I don’t know how long we can stay here making good wines, maybe 20 or 30 years, I don’t know. Climate change is changing all the circumstances.” The family business has been making wine in Catalonia since 1870, but Torres said: “In 30 to 50 years’ time maybe we have to stop viniculture here. “Tourists are very important for Catalonia and we are very close to Barcelona. This area could be for activity for tourists but viniculture, I don’t think is going to be here.”

EDIT

Familia Torres has more than 1,000 hectares of vineyards in Catalonia, mainly in the Penedès region, as well as sites in other parts of Spain, Chile and California. It is now expanding to higher altitudes, producing grapes in Tremp, in the Catalan Pre-Pyrenees, at 950 metres, and acquiring plots in Benabarre, in the Aragonese Pyrenees, at 1,100 metres, where it is still too cold to grow vines. It is also using a variety of techniques to reduce or reuse water in its growing and processing practices.

That came after the family recorded a 1C rise in the average temperature in the Penedès region over the past 40 years. The change is causing the harvest to take place 10 days earlier than it did a few decades ago, while the family employs a variety of techniques to slow the ripening of the grapes to protect the right qualities for winemaking. Torres’s comments come after a difficult few years for European vineyards. He said production was down as much as 50% in some of the winemaker’s regions in 2023 – “the worst year I have ever seen” – and still down on historic averages last year amid extreme heat and drought.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/may/17/top-winemaker-spanish-vineyards-climate-crisis-familia-torres

[dutch777]

1. Not limited to Spain. Vineyards in the US like Walla Walla valley have been buying uplands for years for same reason

They have been seeing increased heat impact on lowland crop for years and it takes years to plant and shift production.