Day20

If you want to buy good wine, Elizabeth Wolkovich says, you’re going to want to stop looking at labels and just listen to your taste buds.

伊丽莎白·沃尔科维奇说如果你想要买到好酒，你就要停止看酒的标签，而要听听味蕾的声音。

“It’s going to be very hard, given the amount of warming we’ve already committed to … for many regions to continue growing the exact varieties they’ve grown in the past,” Wolkovich said. “But what we’re interested in talking about is how much more diversity of grape varieties do we have, and could we potentially be using that diversity to adapt to climate change?

沃尔科维奇说:“即使拥有了我们承诺过的温暖，很多地区很难长出像过去一样多种类的葡萄。但我们在讨论中感兴趣的是我们有多少种可变化的葡萄？我们能用葡萄的多样性去适应气候变化吗？”

“The Old World has a huge diversity of wine grapes — there are more than planted 1,000 varieties — and some of them are better adapted to hotter climates and have higher drought tolerance than the 12 varieties now making up over 80 percent of the wine market in many countries,” she said. “We should be studying and exploring these varieties to prepare for climate change.”

她说:“过去有庞大种类的葡萄，超过一千种。并且其中有一些比现在用于制作很多国家百分之八十葡萄酒的12个品种的葡萄有更好更高的耐热、抗旱能力。”

Unfortunately, Wolkovich said, convincing wine producers to try different grape varieties is difficult, and the reason often comes down to the current concept of terroir. Terroir is the notion that a wine’s flavor is a reflection of which, where, and how grapes were grown. Thus, as currently understood, only certain traditional or existing varieties are part of each terroir, leaving little room for change.

沃尔科维奇说:“不幸的是，说服葡萄酒制造商尝试不同种类的葡萄是非常困难的。原因经常归结为风土的概念。风土反映了酒的风味，也就是葡萄的产地和生长过程。因此，大家认为一个地方只能长出这个地方过去和现存的品种，几乎没有改变。”

“There’s a real issue in the premier wine-growing regions that historical terroir is what makes great wine, and if you acknowledge in any way that you have climate change, you acknowledge that your terroir is changing,” Wolkovich said. “So in many of those regions, there is not much of an appetite to talk about changing varieties.”

她说:“在最早的葡萄酒生产地有这样一个事实。老的风土可以酿好酒。只要你承认有气候变化，你就得承认你的风土变了。所以在这些地区几乎没人讨论改变葡萄种类。”

But even if that appetite existed, Wolkovich said, researchers don’t yet have enough data to say whether other varieties would be able to adapt to climate change.

但即使有想改变的欲望，研究者也没有足够的数据来说明其他品种能够适应气候变化。

“In Europe, people do blend wines … but in the New World, we’ve gotten really focused on specific varieties: ‘I want a bottle of Pinot Noir,’ or ‘I want a bottle of Cabernet.’ We’ve been taught to recognize the varieties we think we like. People buy Pinot even though it can taste totally different depending on where it’s grown. It might taste absolutely awful from certain regions, but if you think you like Pinot, you’re only buying that.”

在欧洲，人们和混合的葡萄酒。但现在我们真正关心具体的种类。我想要一瓶黑皮诺或者我想要一瓶解百纳。我们学会识别喜欢酒的种类。人们买黑皮诺即使它的味道与该有的味道截然不同。一些地区的酒尝起来很糟糕，但如果你认为你喜欢黑皮诺，你只会买它。

As Wolkovich sees it, wine producers now face a choice: proactively experiment with new varieties, or risk suffering from climate change.

正如沃尔科维奇看到的，葡萄酒制造商面临一个选择:是主动试验新品种，还是冒险忍受气候变化。

“With continued climate change, certain varieties in certain regions will start to fail. That’s my expectation,” she said. “The solution we’re offering is: How do you start thinking of varietal diversity? Maybe the grapes grown widely today were the ones that are easiest to grow and tasted the best in historical climates, but I think we’re missing a lot of great grapes better suited for the future.”

沃尔科维奇说：“随着气候不停变化，特定的地区不能产出特定的葡萄。这是我的期望。我们提供的解决方法是：你怎么开始考虑种类多样性？可能现在最广泛的葡萄是过去气候中最容易生长且味道最好的葡萄。但是我认为我们失去了很多更适合未来的好葡萄。”