What climate change means for the wine industry

The warmer weather may benefit English vineyards, but winemakers from Bordeaux to California are struggling. Here are six wines rising to the challengeOne of the ways the British media covers climate change is to treat it as a bit of banter in silly-season items on English wine. This summer's heatwave was the pretext for an awful lot of these "and finally" moments, in which the tone is unfailingly flippant: never mind the melting Arctic, the shires will take over from Champagne!Well, hoorah for that. Except, of course, the impact of climate changeon wine isn't quite as straightforward as a few nice summers and guaranteed bumper vintages in Sussex. What the larky local-radio questions about Bordeaux-on-Thames tend to gloss over is that itwon't necessarily make the UK, or anywhere, a better place to grow wine. Erratic weather, floods, hurricanes, extreme, unseasonal frost and drought: none of these are friends of the winemaker. Continue reading...