Weird Science and Wine (Part 2)

Burgundy, or Bourgogne if you prefer. It's among the great wine regions of the world. In fact, some would say that it has no peer. Certainly, the price tags attached to some of the regions finest wines would suggest that to be the case.

But, Burgundy has a scourge. You see, generally speaking, the weather in Burgundy is not my idea of great. It's typically not very warm and there is a fair amount of precipitation as major wine regions go. 

If it comes within growing season, there are a few great killers of world-class Pinot Noir. One is the frost that occasionally hits Burgundy right around the time of budbreak. The second is excessive rain.

Neither is the worst, however. The ultimate vintage-killer in Burgundy is large hail as it does significant damage to the grapes. And, it has for centuries, several times causing mort estates in Burgundy to declassify their vintages.

Enter science.

Some brilliant person had an idea. Put up a hail shield. No, we're not talking about a physical shield, but a way to stop the hail. And, they started doing this in 2017. Not only does it rely on this shield, but it relies on somewhat accurate weather forecasts.

Whenever the meteorologists predict a chance of hail of a minimum sitting somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 (that's about 33% to 50% for people who like percentages better than fractions, the hail shield goes up.

The combined vineyards active a group of generators that actually shoot very hot silver iodide up into the clouds. By doing so, the clouds are warmed sufficiently that hail does not form and therefore never hits the precious grapevines.