Wine Growers 'On Tip Of Africa' Race To Adapt To Climate Change

At a South African wine farm, dry, uprooted grapevines are stacked at the bottom of a hilly stretch of brown fallow land.

Much of the vineyard is being replanted to better cope with climate change, which is projected to bring rarer but more violent rainfall to this wine-loving corner of the world.

From Australia to California, France, Spain and Italy, producers in wine-growing regions around the world face a race to adapt to a changing climate which affects the grapes.

"I don't like just accepting things. Let's put up a bit of a fight," said Rosa Kruger, the viticultural consultant overseeing the project in the Cape Winelands region east of Cape Town.

Like other wine farms surrounding the city of Stellenbosch, the Reyneke estate's vineyards were ill-equipped to withstand climatic shocks, she said.

"In the old days we used to have square blocks," Kruger, 64, sporting boots, jeans and a dark windbreaker jacket, told AFP of the planting set-up she is in the process of replacing.

To better deal with heavy rains, the new grapevines are being laid out to conform with the hilly landscape.

The replanting is done in phases, with old vines notably Chenin, the emblematic grape variety of France's Loire region, keeping up production while the new ones grow.

It can take them up to four years to become productive.

"We designed the vineyards according to the natural lay of the land," said Kruger._AFP