Ripe for Disruption by Yann Kerblat

Winemakers are some of the most seasoned climate scientists in the world. Agricultural techniques required for harvesting grapes accumulated over centuries, coupled with precise knowledge of environmental patterns surrounding their vineyards, provide them with unrivaled expertise and meticulous methods to optimize wine production. As the most essential ingredient for wine production, climate determines the type and the quality of the wine that can be produced on a particular terrain. Recent extreme weather events have shown that grapes are extremely sensitive to sudden changes in temperature and other climatic fluctuations. Such shifts raise tough questions for the industry whilst disrupting centuries of cultural norms and agricultural practices in winemaking. While the topic of climate change in the wine industry attracts much media and academic attention and generates important discussions within the industry, most of the existing evidence is either geographically localized, confined to a specific grape variety, or difficult to grasp for wine aficionados. The Ripe for Disruption project provides a “glocal” glimpse into the wine industry, by using geovisualization tools to help readers better grasp which wine regions are already highly exposed to global warming. A closer look at extreme weather events that recently impacted the “Old World” and the “New World” is provided to contextualize these macro-level shifts, before finally, exploring different opportunities and adaptive changes the wine industry might go through as a result.