THE PERFECT BLEND

Climate change is redrawing the map of where grapes can grow, but, says Rosamund Hall, winemakers should be more imaginative with their products and not just follow the sun

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Wine can sometimes be like a stubborn toddler who point-blank refuses to do what you ask them, even though you know it's what's best for them. It's been kicking around as a product for millennia, being enjoyed as part of everyday life. And during this time, it has undergone huge expansion and growth - with vines planted globally between the latitudes of 28 and 50 degrees in both the northern and southern hemispheres.

Production boomed in the late Seventies with more than 10 million hectares of vineyards, and it’s estimated that there are now approximately 7.3 million hectares under vine. But, for such a globally available product, wine is appallingly marketed. It is so difficult to determine quality just by looking at a bottle, and the industry itself frequently demonstrates great inflexibility to both consumer trends and external factors such as climate change.

The first annual Fine Wines and Restaurants Market Monitor report, written by the consultancy firm Bain & Company and published last week, predicts that in the not-too-distant future, Bordeaux, in the southwest of France, will be too hot and dry to grow the world’s most popular red grape, cabernet sauvignon – the variety that really exalted Bordeaux to its superstar status.

The report states that wine production will have to move north, taking in Germany, southern Scandinavia, northern France, and, of course, England. It predicts that by 2100, the most northerly point in England that will support the production of Cabernet Sauvignon will be just north of the Yorkshire city of Hull. A glass of Cotes de Yorkshire, anyone?