The vine is a temperate creature. What it likes best of all is the 'Goldilocks' zone, places where it's neither too hot nor too cold. If it finds itself too cold, the grapes don't ripen properly, and for wine-makers that's a disaster. Under-ripe grapes makes for thin, sour wine. If on the other hand it gets too hot, the resulting wine can taste jammy and burnt. The alcohol levels will be very high, but the balance of the wine, its structure, will be out of kilter.

Given that, you'll find that the world's best vineyards are in places where the climate is temperate. Think of France here, a country where summers are much hotter than they are in Ireland, but where rain and hail-stones are not unknown. Hot summers can create their own oddities of meteorology. In August 1994 a hailstorm in my southern Italian valley produced hail-stones the size of pigeons' eggs, and a few even larger ones. These caused a number of broken car windscreens, three cows died, and a whole village's vineyards were reduced to ruin. When ripe grapes are struck by hail they bruise and then rot quickly, making the harvest and its subsequent wine-making almost impossible. In my valley there are a myriad small producers, people who make maybe 1,000 or 2,000 litres of wine a year largely for their own consumption, and the vagaries of the weather are simply tolerated with resignation. However if you're a big producer with millions at stake, this resigned attitude to whatever the weather can throw at you isn't a possibility.

In Bordeaux, where wine is the mainstay of the economy, they have learned to take action to make the weather less of threat. Back in 1991 downpours in September spoiled what might have been a great harvest and it happened again in 1994. If you're a famous Bordeaux chateau you're looking at the loss of millions of euros, so it makes sense to take precautions. Since those calamitous years more and more properties are erecting plastic sheeting as a canopy over the vines as harvest time comes near. I heard of a top-selling chateau that enlisted the use of helicopters to hover over the vines, the down draught serving to dry off sodden grapes.

Modern technology can be made to help as well. If despite your best efforts your grapes get too much wetting and are now engorged with water, there are things that can be done. Once you allowed a gentle pressing and collected the free-run juice, which in itself served to concentrate the flavours and leave out much of the water. Today there are machines that extract surplus water from the grapes prior to vinification. It's tempting to suppose that this is the kind of technology that only big producers of bulk table wine might use, but they use it at Chateau Latour.

Wine of the Week

Inycon Fiano 2002

This comes from a new range of Sicilian wines in Dunnes, the other varietals being a Syrah, a Merlot and a Nero d'Avola. The Fiano is a fresh tasting white with the sort of creaminess you'd expect from a Burgundy. The bouquet is quite aromatic and there are citrus fruit tones. This is a wine that would make a good accompanimant to simple seafood dishes or white meats.
Available Dunnes Stores, €7.99