For the past 25 years, I proclaim loud and clear that water is the new golden treasure. This precious resource is vital not only to the crops but also to the wine-making process. To produce a bottle of wine, you need one ton of water. A crucial component that is becoming increasingly scarce due to droughts and climate change, which results in hot and even scorching weather.

While it is highly unrealistic to believe one might be able to control the rainfall or reverse the climate situation, several solutions are available to reduce the need for water. This ensures that we can continue to produce juicy and fruity grapes that are neither over-ripe nor sunburned, which could result in wines with too much alcohol, firm tannins, and low acidity.

However, the water shortage problem is not a new one. Although it has become more of a pressing issue in France in the last ten years (particularly since 2003, the benchmark year for drought), unfortunately, this phenomenon has been widely experienced in the southern hemisphere for decades. I started working in Australia nearly 30 years ago, vividly recalls the blazing sun that drenches these vineyards. At the time, these wines were criticized for having too much alcohol, too little acidity, and for using water irrigation systems in the vineyard. But today, look at what's going on at home. We're facing the same issues, have the same kind of analysis, and are still making wine!

We could adjust the water storage beforehand. Are retention basins or hill lakes part of the solution? For me, they simply relocate the problem. After all, wine is 85% water.

As far as the actual production of wine is concerned, what about the de-alcoholization of the wine? We could do it, but we'd need to use water! We use three times the volume of drinking water of a traditional wine-making process when we reduce the alcohol content of a wine. We irrigate in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, we fight to have water, but it is a short-term vision. Viticulture requires an increasing amount of water, so if it rains less and less, we will have to find mitigating solutions for the medium to long term, especially since the drought accentuates the level of evaporation. Each year, new records are set.

We have to go north, to higher altitudes, to revise the selection of terroirs by favoring, for example, more sandy soils. Nowadays, sparkling wine vineyards are being successfully developed in the United Kingdom, Sweden, and even Ontario.
Also, it is necessary to favor grape varieties with higher acidity, such as Assyrtiko, to preserve the old vines, to overgrow, and to layer it while not losing sight of the fact that the best terroirs today were the ones no one wanted yesterday.

Lastly, we must remain open to new practices and constantly reinvent ourselves. Daring to mix white and red wines or different vintages, all to obtain accessible and digestible wines. The "Almutia Clair-Obscur" wine from Châteauneuf-du-Pape is an excellent example of such practice; we are told to plant white grapes, but in 30 years, it may be the other way around, and we will have to uproot the vines. So we plant black grapes, which allows us to make rosé, red and white wines.

Adaptation and pragmatism, my guiding principles for nearly 30 years, are the best way forward. We have to plant further north and at a higher altitude. Today, at 800 meters, we can ripen grapes with levels we didn't have before.