“Therefore a decision was made to exceptionally and temporarily increase the regulatory limit to 15% - only for this year,” she said.
“The 2026 growing season will be remembered as one of the most unusual in Champagne’s history, marked by severe spring frosts of historic intensity, an exceptionally early flowering period and five heatwaves throughout the summer.” it added.
Oh the adorable optimism. To borrow from Homer, “the most unusual, so far.” I don’t think climate change is done with Europe yet.
Severe spring frosts don’t seem like they will become common.
If the gulf stream peters out, who knows.
I don’t know. While the earth is warming on average, the weather fluctuations are becoming more extreme even on the colder side with the occasional broadening of the polar vortex. So warmer averages with more surprise frosts could be in the cards.
Yes, it’s why we changed to call it climate change rather than global warming. We get hot days in summer but also terribel storms and blizzards with unseasonably cold weather. And summers can be extremely hot and dry but that’s not a given.
Average temperatures are certainly going up, hence the old term but there is much more variability is the bigger problem. A degree here or there doesn’t kill thousand. A jump of 20degrees forn2 weeks does, even if it drops down again.
She told the Times: "Today people increasingly prefer lower-alcohol
“The battle between what consumers want and what nature provides must be very stressful for producers.”
Leave cask or whatever open until sufficient ethanol evaporates?
Nah, nasties get in, just dilute the grape juice and proceed as normal. I imagine the desire however is to work with what nature gave them for something interesting.
Schlitz Malt Liquor Bullpagne
Edit: People should really stop upvoting this
Oh, dear…
Having spent much of my life in high heat and equatorial climates, alcohol is bad.
I mean it’s good, fun, relaxing, whatever; but you really must be aware of the impacts on the body in high heat because it amplifies all the bad stuff.
Europeans are but neophytes in the way of the “heatwave”. They don’t even know how AC systems work. They just think you turn on AC and that’s that 🤦
Did you read the article?
Nope. Skimmed.
Broke my own code. Ironically I blame the sparkling Chardonnay.
And that means that it’s not allowed to talk about major regulatory changes? We need to downvote any alcohol-related news item, unless it’s specifically about restricting alcohol use?
