unheard of in the world of wine. She is also experimenting with techniques in the vineyard, such as adding algae from the sea to the usual crop cover between rows of vines. The algae helps to maintain humidity in the soil. Martinez insists that organic farming must be part of any solution. Right now, Bruma is organic in practice but still seeks certification. “Being organic?” she says. “Seriously, sincerely, we have to be. Today, making good wine is not enough. What’s your social ethic? What’s your environmental ethic?” Despite her forward-thinking agricultural efforts, for Martinez, it all comes back to water. “We have to deal with the drought. Everything else is just easy,” says Martinez. “But Mother Nature only gave us so much water.” You’ll find the same conversation with every winemaker in the valley. “We started talking about this in 1986,” Magoni says ruefully. “We specialize in talking.” Some have suggested desalination as a possible solution to the water problem. Magoni notes that south of Ensenada, there are around 60 private desalination plants used for agriculture. But he believes wineries like his in the valley may be too far from the ocean for that to be feasible. He sees reclaimed, treated water as a more likely solution. One plan that’s been talked about is a pipeline from Tijuana to bring reclaimed water to the valley. But as Martinez notes, “In Mexico, the government isn’t going to give this to us. We have to do it privately.” Twelve years ago, with the permission of the water commission in Tijuana, Magoni planted an experimental vineyard inside the perimeter of the city’s water treatment plant. “I made water and soil analysis and did microbiology studies of the grapes. No problems at all. The vines are beautiful,” he said. This year, they harvested three tons of cabernet sauvignon from the water treatment plant. “We need water, and the only source is treated water. But no one wants to communicate that,” says Victor Segura, winemaker at Madera 5, which is based on the outskirts of
W
Spain, Italy, Australia, and elsewhere are already too hot to grow their traditional grapes. Valle de Guadalupe and San Diego County share many characteristics of these regions. So what is a 21st-century winemaker in a hot climate supposed to do?
ith all the crises facing the world, some might dismiss the issue of growing grapes for premium wine to be a
minor, bougie, first-world problem. But wine has always been a window into much larger farming issues.
“In some ways, wine is like the canary in the coal mine for climate change impacts on agriculture because these grapes are so climate-sensitive.”
Lulu Martinez, a winemaker at Bruma, spent half her life working in Bordeaux, returning in 2015 to work with Bodegas Henri Lurton and then moving on to her current position. Baja is a completely different growing situation than a cooler, rainier environment like Bordeaux. “Here, it’s like, ‘Ok, tomorrow it’s going to be hot again,’” she says with a laugh. Martinez finds herself harvesting grapes earlier and earlier each year. This year, she harvested her sauvignon blanc in late July, a date nearly
“In some ways, wine is like the canary in the coal mine for climate change impacts on agriculture because these grapes are so climate-sensitive,” said Benjamin Cook from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Cook is the co-author of a 2020 study that determined the world’s area suitable for growing wine grapes could shrink by more than half over the next several decades if climate change continues its pace. According to the study, some famed wine regions in
47 SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE
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