The rise of English viticulture

Climate change does not offer consolations. But it can produce winners as well as losers. With parts of England and Wales as hot as the Champagne region of France was in the 1980s, the sparkling-wine industry is already bubbling. Longer sunny periods will make it easier for British vintners to make still wines as well as award-winning cuvée blancs.A recent study from the University of East Anglia and the London School of Economics finds that climate change is also expanding the area in England and Wales suitable for making wine. Most vineyards now are in south-east England but more land as far north as the east Midlands could come into use. Alistair Nesbitt, the study’s lead author and a consultant at Vinescapes Limited, says that by 2040 higher temperatures may also allow winemakers to grow more disease-resistant varieties of grapes.