By Linnea Lueken
A recent article from The Globe and Mail (G&M), “In French wine country, climate change and dwindling demand are a recipe for trouble,” claims that French wine production is suffering because of the effects of climate change and, at a distant second, market changes. This is exactly reversed. While it is true that drought and heatwaves impact grape production and yield, wine itself has persisted through many changes in average global temperature over thousands of years. Market forces are actually the main driver force behind the French wine slump.
This summer’s heat and drought in Europe caused crop loss of grapes in wine regions of France, especially in Bordeaux, where wildfires also destroyed some vineyards. The G&M attributes this weather to climate change, although as Climate Realism contributor and meteorologist Anthony Watts has explained in “Wrong, Newsweek, Europe’s Heat Deaths Are a Policy Failure, Not a Climate Failure,” persistent and severe heatwaves are far from unprecedented in Europe. In addition, as discussed in a second Climate Realism post, recent wildfires are not historically unusual in France, with no data showing a sustained increase in acreage lost over time.
Wine is grown in regions that are hotter than Bordeaux, and colder. Temperature has an effect on the sugars and tannins in the fruit, this is true, but bad weather is something that winemakers have had to deal with as long as wine has been produced. Global climate change is not harming global grape production, according to United Nations data, and data does not indicate that the French climate is spiraling out of control. Only a long term trend of persistently bad weather would suggest this year’s drought and heat was indicative of climate change, yet there is no such long-term trend. This year’s bad weather, was just that, a year of bad weather, like French grape growers have experienced hundreds of times before over the centuries.
Just three years ago, French winemakers were upset because they were producing more wine than they could sell, and they lost hundreds of millions in destroying the excess. Obviously having more wine than patrons wish to imbibe is not a problem caused by climate change, and low production years aren’t either.
As G&M itself admits, France has steadily reduced the production of grapes since peaking in the 1970s. Production peaked in 1979, at a time when many scientists were worried about global cooling with some warning of a possible looming ice age.
Buried several paragraphs into the article, G&M makes the devastating admission that “consumption has fallen by 14 per cent since 2018, largely because of shifting social habits,” and “annual consumption has fallen from more than 100 litres per adult in 1960 to less than 20 litres today.”
These are very significant changes, changes that have been much more damaging to the wine industry overtime than occasional bad weather. Market forces working against them combined with a bad season, for smaller winemakers operating on slim margins, can be devastating.
Another economic issue only briefly mentioned by G&M is that “the cost of fuel and other farm supplies has doubled in the past couple of years.”
That problem would only be exacerbated if climate alarmists have their way regarding fossil fuel use. Food prices are impacted greatly by fuel costs, but especially wine. Wine requires energy for processing and storage. Packaging wine in bottles usually relies on fossil fuel powered machines. Glass and cork prices are impacted heavily by energy costs, so those supplies will become more expensive too.
At the consumer level, the costs add up even more because of shipping. Higher prices for wine that people are already drinking less of only exacerbates the issue, suppressing demand even further.
As one wise interviewee remarked: “You need to adapt to the climate. You need to adapt to the market.”
The wine market has significantly contracted over the past couple of decades. This is obviously bad for winemakers as well as wine drinkers, as lower production usually also means higher prices. Changing drinking habits among Americans and Europeans alike are driving the decline wine sales that G&M bemoans. By contrast, contrary to G&M’s claims, there is no evidence or data to suggest that climate change is to blame for that contraction, even if winemakers experience a poor producing year due to bad weather.
