GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Climate change is on the mind of everyone in the wine business, not just the short-term reactions to weather but the longer-term concerns about what grape varieties will work and how to manage them.

Last weekend I visited the Maison Blanche in Yvorne with a group of judges from the Mondial des Pinots. I spent enough of the summer in this area to be aware that it’s been an extraordinarily dry summer: witness my own suffering vegetable garden! Jean-Daniel Suardet is in charge of the vines at this award-winning winery: its Sauvignon Blanc has just won a gold medal at the national wine awards and its Chasselas is routinely one of the best in canton Vaud.

He told us that the quantity of rainfall during July and August 2015 until last week was less than one-tenth of the same period the previous year.

That’s a shocking drop for any plant to deal with, but Maison Blanche is lucky because it’s soil is a mix of clay and pebbles. The town of Yvorne is the site of a 14th century massive landslide and the result today is soil that is perfect for vines.

The top of the slopes have more clay and larger rocks while, not surprisingly, the bottom harbours soil with more pebbles. The clay holds the water during longer bouts of dryness while the pebbly soil drains very well. The vines, says Suardet, are stressed but adapting.

RTS is running a series of news stories about the impact of this kind of summer on Swiss growers and wine producers, asking them how they view climate change. Vivien Zufferey is interviewed about climate change; Benoit Dorsaz, Fully and Didier Joris, Chamoson as well as Dominique Fornage, an expert on different vintages, talk about how vineyards here will have to adapt. Pinot Noir, for example, might be grown at higher altitudes. Dorsaz talks about how Petite Arvine detests a shortage of water, and the way in which vines are pruned and treated may need to change.