If you’re still somehow sitting on the fence about climate change, maybe this news might make you rethink that next plastic straw. Prosecco is under threat of being wiped out as a direct result of global warming. Mountainside vineyards, where the grapes that go into bubbles are grown, are most at risk from soil degradation and drought. According to a study led by Dr Paolo Tarolli of the University of Padova in Italy, the risk is not isolated to the Glera grapes that are commonly used in Italy for prosecco production. The risk extends to a whole swag of grape varietals that thrive on the well-draining but thin hillside soil like cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir and chardonnay.

Climate change has led to a degradation of the soil with increased periods of drought contrasted with extreme rainfall and subsequent flooding, ultimately eroding the land and washing away the valuable soil that has been providing us with grapes for hundreds of years. Dr Tarolli flagged a number of more human consequences of losing these wine industries across Spain, Italy and Portugal “The risk is not only losing an agricultural product or seeing a landscape change, negatively impacting the local economy. The risk is losing entire communities’ history and their cultural roots.”

The paper, published in the iScience journal, also cited a declining population in rural areas over the last 50 years as a risk to these historic wine regions before adding the very original notion that it’s those darn millennials that have ruined the industry. “The new generation is unwilling to continue working under extreme conditions if economic benefits are insignificant.” Go figure.

Closer to home, Australian grape growers are facing similar challenges as a direct result of climate change, with the last few years serving as particularly loud wake up calls. 2017 saw the worst drought ever recorded in Australia, entire harvests tainted by smoke from the extreme bushfires of 2019 and 2020, and bogged vineyards affected by mildew and rot thanks to the years of rain that followed. The predicted return of El Nino this year spells a very hot and dry summer, with much of the east coast’s hazard reduction burning incomplete thanks to the floods.