Are we witnessing the death of wine? Climate change is changing how, and mostly, where winemakers produce wine. Increasingly erratic weather extremes are putting the world’s winemakers to the ultimate test. The classic fine wine regions, once temperate, are growing hotter, erasing the classic profiles of our most beloved regions. Many of the negative effects of climate change on the wine world are already apparent: wines with staggeringly high alcohol levels (also often a style-choice), lower yields due to both rogue spring hail and snow storms and increasing summer temperatures. “Vintage variation” has taken on a whole new meaning. But new opportunities are also presenting themselves: there are those wine regions that will cease viticulture, but there are also those that will adapt, improve and emerge.

This book will explore climate change in a wine producing context, discussing why climate is important to grape growing and how climatic changes can affect grapes and wine. It will cover each major wine region in the world, analysing the likely trends and their responses. And it will cover the ways wine producers are coping with this very quickly changing landscape.