CLIMATE CHANGE VINTAGES Are Here

Sustainable production and eco-friendly packaging often steal the headlines when it comes to drinks and climate change. But for consumers, they’ve been a smokescreen to the fact that the climate is already changing the way drinks taste. Now, brands are starting to make a selling point of these changes, being overt about their impact on the liquid. So, is climate change the new vintage?

Droughts, wildfires, storms, late harvests, early harvests, floods; you name it…the weather is getting increasingly wild, increasingly more often. It’s an acceleration of shifting weather patterns that has seen even regions that are unused to such dramatic events, be greatly impacted by them. And for those that were already prone to natural disasters and extreme weather, the perils are now occurring more often, or at totally unexpected times.

Over the past few weeks, it was rare and aggressive wildfires ripping through Halifax, Canada that helped turn the sky red over New York City. While in the Rocky Mountains, two days before the official start of summer, over 20cm fell on ski hills that would normally be gearing up to welcome mountain bikers. In the UK, this week it was revealed that our seas have received some of the most intense marine heat increases seen across the world, with a jump of 3 to 4°C above the average for this time of year. In short, that the weather is out of sync is becoming more and more evident.