Last week I wrote about how Climate Change is impacting the global wine industry. This week I wanted to drill in a bit more on a specific style: champagne/sparkling and the impact the heat is causing now. This is part one of three.
What Heat Does to Acidity
The same climate system is destroying traditional wine regions and opening new ones simultaneously. Bordeaux hit 46°C during flowering last weekend, which causes coulure and cell death in vines at the worst possible moment in the growing season.
At the same time, Kari Koskela at Kotola Vineyard in South
Karelia is growing cold-hardy hybrids (Marquette, La Crescent, St. Pepin) at 61 degrees north, varieties developed at the University of Minnesota specifically for sub-zero climates.
Happy to go deep on any of this in the comments, vine biology, variety shifts, the breeding programs, what England and Scandinavia look like in 20 years.
Full piece here if anyone wants the detail:
https://solera.vin/blog/climate-wine-map-redrawn-2026