Global Climate Change and Wine Production: Industry and Academic Perspectives

For more than a decade, industry practitioners have been confronting and academic researchers have been studying the implications of global climate change for the wine industry. An industry-academic panel brought together leaders from industry and knowledgeable researchers from academia to engage in a discussion about the effects of global climate change on wine production, and what can be done about it. The panelists brought their diverse backgrounds and great expertise to the discussion. Among the topics examined in this article, which summarizes the highlights of the panel discussion, are: the prevalence of water shortages and ways of adapting; the differential impacts of climate change—in terms of temperature and precipitation changes—on winegrowing in different regions of the world; and attention now given by wineries to reducing their own emissions of greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4).