Wine - the barometer of global warming

This from the Arizona Republic, reports on French viticulturists who are harvesting their grape crops ever earlier each year.

"The evidence, scrawled in black ink, is the first day of the annual grape harvest for the past three decades. In 1978, it was Oct. 16. In 1998, the date was Sept. 14. This year, harvesting started Aug. 24 - the earliest ever recorded, not only in Mure's vineyards but in the entire Alsace wine district of northeastern France."

"Throughout the wine-producing world, from France to South Africa to California, vintners are in the vanguard of confronting the impact of climate change. Rising temperatures are forcing unprecedented early harvests, changing the tastes of the best-known varieties of wine and threatening the survival of centuries-old winegrowing regions."

It seems that vines are one of the most sensitive of crops when it comes to even slight temperature increases, and some growers are now having to doctor their wines with acidic compounds to prevent them becoming too sweet.

As the harvesting dates get earlier each year, the barometer that is wine, shows that the climate is indeed warming significantly.