When a team of New Zealand scientists analyzed the alcohol produced by the local vineyard Greystone Wines, they found something with profound implications for every wine drinker on the planet. The microbial ecosystems that distinguish literal wine from mere grape juice — the panoply of yeasts, bacteria and fungi — fluctuated significantly between the vintages produced in 2018 and 2021 by the North Canterbury winemaker because of human-caused climate change. Without exactly the right microbial ecosystems, it appears, vineyards either produce low-quality wine or no wine at all.
Now the problem of climate change and wine that was explored by those scientists (in their case, for an article in the journal PLOS One) is being explored on a broader scale. In its latest annual report, the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) say that wine production has reached its lowest level in more than six decades, and climate change is a major culprit.
