GOTLAND — “They are called piwi grapes. It is a cross between the traditional grape – vitis vinifera – and other wild grapes,” explains Andrea Guerra. “That wine comes from the Friulano, a grape from northern Italy. Growing regular Friulano would have been impossible because of the cold. But some varieties grow very well.”
A grey blanket of cloud cover fills the sky as Guerra, originally from Salerno, Italy, walks among the 26,000 vines of Långmyre Vineri. Appearing in the middle of his beard, his smile suggests pride and exhaustion.
With his partner, Emma Serner, a native Swede, they founded the vineyard in 2018 on the island of Gotland, in the middle of the Baltic Sea. “There is another one,” he says, looking down the road to the neighboring fields. “And next year, another one is due to open. Another madman making wine on this island.”
“On this side, we have red grapes all the way to the back,” Guerra points to the left, indicating long rows of vines stretching to the fence bordering the property. “We have Merlot Cantus and some rows of Cabernet Volos, which is a Cabernet Sauvignon. And on that side, we have only white grapes,” he says pointing to the right. He bends down to examine some small, budding fruits, barely visible behind luxuriant leaves, “this variety is a hybrid of Friulano.”
Wine pioneers beyond the Northern limits
Gotland is located more than 750 kilometers above the 50th parallel, traditionally considered the northern limit beyond which winemaking is impossible. The island has been through invasions by Vikings, pirates and crusaders. The first human inhabitants arrived on its shores some 7,000 years ago, but Guerra and Serner are among the pioneers when it comes to introducing the founding grape of European wine – or rather, a hybrid version of Vitis vinifera – to the island soil.
Guerra has been in the wine industry since he was 10, back when he was helping his father in a small family vineyard. After getting his university degree in oenology and viticulture, he traveled around the world, to the United States, New Zealand and France, to practice his trade and improve his knowledge. He met Serner at a winery in Tuscany, where they both worked, and after a while, the couple decided to start their own wine business. But rather than settling in Guerra’s native Italy, or some other traditional wine-growing country, they looked further north.
“It was clear to us that we needed to aim further north, because of climate change,” says Guerra. “Starting something from scratch in Italy, given the current climate situation, would not have been a great idea. After two years of research, we reached the conclusion that Gotland could be suitable for growing grapes.”
Piwi grapes
Climate change is one of the most urgent threats the European wine industry faces. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) declared 2023 the hottest year on record. Every summer, temperatures reach increasingly extreme levels in southern Europe, generating droughts, causing fires and ruining harvests. “It’s crazy on every level,” says Irene Bonilla, head of Vineyards at the CVNE winery, which has been producing wines in La Rioja since 1879. “You never know where the next blow will come from.”
In the meantime, global warming is also warming up the Nordic cold to degrees that become more bearable to many fruit crops, including grapes. According to statistics from the World Bank’s Climate Change Knowledge Portal, the average maximum temperature in summer in Sweden during the period 1991-2020 was 0.9°C higher than between 1961-1990.
Despite increasingly favorable temperatures, Guerra and Serner insist that the key to the success of their vines is not so much in an increasingly hot climate but in the grapes themselves: the piwi.
Piwi is short for German pilzwiderstandfähig, which means “resistant to fungal diseases.” Piwi are bred from cross-pollination, when the flowers of one species are dusted with the pollen of another; the seed produced by this fertilization is hybrid, naturally carrying the genetic material of both species.
These hybrid grapes were first developed as a response to the phylloxera epidemic that shook the entire European wine industry during the second half of the 19th century.
Around 1863, the phylloxera, a small North American bug feeding on the roots of grapevines, landed in the port of Bordeaux and began ravaging vineyards across the continent. It rampaged more than a quarter of the vineyards in France and quickly invaded those in Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria and Italy. In a frantic search for a solution, winemakers and botanists crossed the Vitis vinifera with other species, and this is how the first hybrids came to life, in an attempt to create a plant that was resistant to the parasite.
The remedy that was eventually picked was something else: the use of North American rootstocks, naturally immune to phylloxera. This practice remains widespread throughout the continent, even in Sweden. As a result, hybrid grapes were overshadowed, until the end of the 20th century, when new breeds developed in Germany produced grapes that are resistant to fungal diseases, thus facilitating the cultivation of organic grapes without the use of fungicides or other chemicals. By the early 2000s, the term piwi was coined for these hybrids, which, in the following years, would take viticulture to latitudes never imagined before.
According to the PIWI International Association, around 200 vineyards in Sweden produce about 300,000 liters of wine a year, 95% of which comes from piwi grapes. “These varieties work everywhere,” says Guerra. “They are the absolute number one strategy for making wine in Sweden.”
New old vines
Some Swedish wineries are also betting on tradition. “From the beginning, our focus was on traditional grapes,” explains Johan Ölberg, a financial consultant from Stockholm who, together with his Californian wife Heather, founded the Thora vineyard on the Bjäre peninsula. Of their 11 hectares of vines, piwi grapes make up for less than a third.
The main threat from climate change looming on the wine industry is not so much rising temperatures or frost, but variability, with unpredictable extreme weather events. But looking ahead, there seems to be some stability here.
“This peninsula is unique because in the spring, there are constant winds gusting from the ocean, so we don’t suffer from frost,” Johan continues. “These winds also dry out the vineyards after the rain, which reduces the risks of disease. Further away from the coast, winegrowers face frost in May and hail in September, but it doesn’t happen here.”
Bjäre is located on the west coast of the country, about 180 kilometers south of the city of Gothenburg, and is bordered by the waters of the Kattegat Strait between the Baltic and North Seas. The peninsula is part of Scania, Sweden’s southernmost province, where about 80% of its vineyards are concentrated.
The Ölbergs founded Thora on the land of a country house they used to vacation to in the summer. It all started more as an experiment than a business venture. “We didn’t even know that wine was produced in Sweden,” Johan admits. In 2015, the couple planted 300 pinot noir saplings to see what would happen. When they successfully grew, they decided to continue planting. “Johan is a firm believer in continuous planting,” Heather says with a smile.
In 2021, they hired two French winemakers to professionalize their operations, and today Thora boasts its own winery where all the maceration and fermentation processes are carried out. It also features a long automated conveyor that allows bottling at industrial rates, a tasting room, as well as a brand-new restaurant.
Quality first
In Sweden, production regulations like the Controlled Designation of Origin (AOC/DOC) don’t exist yet, and for the moment, winemakers are experimenting with all kinds of grapes that could possibly bear fruit in northern latitudes.
“We need people to believe in Swedish wine,” says Serner from Langmyre. “We are trying to set the bar high.” Given the low labor costs in countries like Italy and Spain – which produced 26% of the world’s wine in 2023, according to statistics from the Rome Business School – Swedish wine will never be competitive from a financial perspective. This is why this first generation of Swedish winemakers has chosen to compete on the palate.
“We want to produce a wine that is comparable to those from Spain, France or the United States,” Heather explains. “We want to make high-quality wine. We want to be in Michelin-starred restaurants.”
They feel lucky, like pioneers, because they are able to use traditional grapes in a non-traditional terroir. “We don’t want to be an eccentric wine from the North Pole,” they say.
Journalists Soledad Domínguez and Polina Bachlakova also participated in this report.
This research was carried out with the support of Journalismfund Europe and a grant from the
Investigative Journalism for Europe (IJ4EU) fund.
