Australia’s wine regions.
A warning for wine-lovers: climate change is messing with your favourite tipple.
March 14, 2019 1.32pm AEDT
Christopher Davies, Christine Bottcher, CSIRO
While the much-derided “latte set” are stereotyped as the biggest worriers about climate change, it’s the chardonnay crowd who are acutely feeling its effects.
Australia’s wine industry is both world-renowned and economically significant, with around A$5.6 billion in sales in 2016–17, and winemaking and associated tourism responsible for more than 170,000 full and part-time jobs. Statistics also show that wine consumption is now accepted as being just as dinky-di as beer drinking for the average Australian.
However, record-breaking daily maximum temperatures, warmer than average overnight temperatures, and increasingly erratic weather patterns are playing havoc with the way wine grapes grow and ripen. This has knock-on effects for Australian grape growers, wine producers and consumers.
