1/1/2024 0 Comments 60 minutes sugar story![]() ![]() I heard they were rich Americans from up in the hills. Stephen Skelton: Yeah, I thought they were nuts. This sprawling vineyard with acres and acres of wine grapes ready for harvest is located in Kent - 40 miles outside of London. Today, a new industry has taken root: healthy vineyards in England are producing some of the world's best wines. For instance, as we first reported in December, the idea that there's no such thing as a velvety, well-balanced, first-rate wine made in England is woefully outdated. While higher temperatures have hurt growers in parts of France and Italy, places that historically have been too cold to produce quality wines are now turning out consistently good ones. Improved taste is not the only unforeseen benefit of climate change for some winemakers.įor some winegrowers, climate change has been a disaster, as we've seen, but as it turns out, climate change has been a boon for others. But at the same time, I'm trustful for next year. Lesley Stahl: If you have another year like this one, financially, can you survive?Ĭhristine Sevillano: It will be difficult, really. Lesley Stahl: So, more quality, but fewer grapes. And then for 600 years before that we were averaging the end of September, 1st of October. And prior to that, we've been averaging for the last 30 years about September 15th. For example, 2020, in Burgundy, the picking date was August 20th. Greg Jones: It accelerates that ripening to the point that we're picking earlier. Greg Jones says the warming atmosphere is also changing the grapes' growth cycle. Particularly hard hit was northern and central Italy, where prosecco, barolo and chianti are made.Īnd in parts of Chile and Argentina, higher temperatures are pushing winegrowers to plant their vineyards at higher altitudes where temperatures are cooler. In 2017 in Italy, spring frost combined with hailstorms and a heatwave known as "Lucifer" led to the lowest harvest in decades. In Australia, the bush fires of 2019 and '20 burnt some vineyards to the ground while smoke ruined the quality of the grapes. Scorching temperatures and drought conditions contributed to wildfires in 2020 around Napa and Sonoma – the center of America's wine industry where fields were left blackened. Heatwaves were also recorded over western North America in June 2021. And Europe has been at the epicenter of it.Ī weather map of Europe for June 2021 – the second warmest June in Europe on record – shows a red band depicting high surface air temperatures stretching across much of the continent. They're sensitive to those kind of changes and, and we've been seeing it worldwide. In, in France, just like most of Europe, temperatures have gone up. Lesley Stahl: Tie what you're saying about climate to what's going on in France now. And those models that are coming out are really telling us more and more that in the absence of humans, most of these things would not occur to the same degree they're occurring today. So what climatologists do is we develop models that look at aspects of climate. Lesley Stahl: -or who to attribute it to, okay. And attribution science is all about trying to kind of understand how much role humans have in the game of-of climate. Greg Jones: There's an area in climate science called attribution science. So how do you know it isn't that normal extreme weather as opposed to a general climate change? I mean, every part of our country is experiencing some extreme weather condition. Lesley Stahl: Yeah, we see it everywhere. Greg Jones: What we're seeing today is we're seeing more of these extreme events happening more frequently at greater degrees and causing more problems. ![]() Jacques Lurton: In average, in France this year, a loss of 30%. Lesley Stahl: So, tell us about this year in terms of the amount. Jacques Lurton: And that, you see, is what affect the most the quantity of the grapes. Now, due to the fact that we don't have these very strong winters, the buds start to open and then expose themself to this series of spring frost that we have. Because before we had some spring frost in some regions, but this is the first time we have it all over France. Jacques Lurton: It is the largest catastrophe we have ever suffered. Spring frost was so severe in April that winegrowers were on their knees lighting bales of hay and candles between their vines in a mostly futile attempt to protect their young buds. So normally, winter cleans the situation, you see? But the most important problem that we have is what we call spring frost. These cool conditions tend to kill the funguses or the disease. In wintertime, normally you get colder conditions. Jacques Lurton: We don't have winters anymore, almost. ![]()
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