The climate change may bring changes in wine production
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The climate crisis may bring a shortage of many popular wines, according to scientists quoted by The Guardian.
The report says that researchers looked at the land suitable for 11 popular varieties of wine grape and found that 2C (3.6F) of warming above pre-industrial levels – a rise the world is on track to exceed – would result in a 56% loss of suitable land within current wine-growing regions compared with the 1970s, before the most serious impacts of global heating.
In fact, the report claims that the white grape variety ugni blanc (also known as trebbiano toscano) is expected to lose 76% of its suitable growing area, and riesling 66%. It also adds that the red grape grenache is predicted to lose 31% of the area currently deemed suitable for growing the variety.
However not all is lost as Ignacio Morales-Castilla, the co-author of the study from the University of Alcalá, Spain, said that “The positive message is that we can still adapt viticulture to climate change – and diversity is a very interesting tool to do that. But the warning … is we should limit warming [as much as] possible, because the more warming we have, the fewer options for adaptation.”
The team said some countries might be more affected than others, with countries already warmer and less able to compensate for future losses: land loss for the varieties could hit 90% for Italy and Spain under 4C of heating.
And there’s more: the team found that new areas around the world – including parts of the UK – would become suitable for wine grapes as the planet continues to heat, with early-ripening varieties such as pinot noir moving north.
