IBP WINES & SPIRITS CHRONICLE
Vine-Tastic! English Winemakers
Raise a Toast to Climate Action
Europe’s Wine Regions
Hit Hardest by Climate
Change, Says Study
Vineyards across the South Downs are embracing climate action to produce
gorgeous glasses of fizz more sustainably.

European wine producers are
grappling with more drastic effects
of climate change than grape
growers in other regions, new
findings show.

From solar panels, to energy-efficient
equipment, rainwater harvesting and less
fertilisers, producers in one of the UK’s
winemaking hubs are finding innovative
ways to do their bit for the planet.

It comes as the South Downs National
Park is one of the fastest-growing wine
regions in Europe, with a 90 per cent
increase in vineyard coverage over the
past decade and an average of five new
vineyards planted every year.

The National Park’s sun-soaked
slopes and chalky soils, reminiscent
of northern France, are perfect for
growing grapes, particularly to make
sumptuous sparkling wines that rival
some of the best in the world in quality,
complexity and taste.

Seven vineyards in and around the
South Downs are now benefitting from
climate action grants. The funding has
come from West Sussex local authorities
– comprising Arun, Chichester, Horsham
and Mid Sussex District Councils, as well
as West Sussex County Council and the
South Downs National Park Authority –
while the South Downs Trust, the official
charity for the National Park, has been
administering the fund.

Chris Hannon, Sustainable Business
Lead for the South Downs National Park,
said, “The South Downs has become
one of Britain’s premier winemaking
regions and it’s a sector that is growing
quickly, in part because of climate
change and warmer summers.

“It’s important that viticulture grows in
an environmentally-sustainable way and
that’s where this funding can really help.

“It’s been wonderful working
closely with our forward-thinking
local authority partners to support
producers and wineries, who are really
keen to incorporate sustainability and
nature-based solutions to create these
wonderful wines.”
34 Art Tukker, who runs Tinwood
Estate and is a second-generation
farmer who took over the estate in
2006, said, “The grant funding to buy
seed which directly improved the
health of our soils and the biodiversity
of our farm was invaluable. The
insects, bees and other species feeding
on the flourishing flowers in between
our vines is wonderful to see!”
Kate O’Norum, who runs The
Ghost At The Feast, said, “This grant
is an absolute game changer for our
on-site micro winery. Packaging and
transportation account for 40 per
cent of a winery’s GHG emissions and
the majority of that is the production
and transportation of glass bottles.

Our new closed-loop bottling system,
which re-uses bottles from the onsite
wine bar, will enable us to cut these
emissions completely, and reduce
our current recycling costs and
emissions, getting us closer to our
sustainability goals.”
Michael Kennedy, CEO of Roebuck
Estates, said, “We have always had
the environment at the heart of
Roebuck Estates, in fact we take our
name from the roe deer that roam
wild near our sites. In 2023, we took
the decision to recruit an ecologist
into our viticulture team to really
help us drive our focus on improving
soil health and encouraging
biodiversity across our six sites. The
climate action grant has allowed us
to bring forward our plans to build
a biodiversity pond in one of our
sites. With the planting of a number
of native plant species, we expect to
encourage a whole host of insect,
mammal and reptile life back into our
vineyard, at a time when nature has
been sorely challenged across the
English countryside.”
The study, published earlier this
month in the PLOS Climate journal,
studied 500 grape varieties and
10 climate measures and found
climate change impacts have been
‘highly uneven across the world’s
winegrowing regions and the
impacts are variable across the
growing season’.

The report, compiled by
researchers from Spain, France, the
US and Canada, found unequivocally
that Europe had been hardest hit in
terms of the frequency of hot days
throughout the harvest season.

“By far the largest shifts are
in European regions, where the
number of hot days (more than
35C) and maximum growing season
temperatures are several standard
deviations higher than before
significant anthropogenic climate
change,” the study said.

In a statement, Dr. Victor van der
Meersch reaffirmed the difficulties
for Europe’s winemakers. “For vines
already near their heat limit and for
regions in Europe that rarely saw
such temperatures before, it’s a big
challenge,” he said.

While South America also
recorded similar rises in ‘mean
temperatures’, the researchers
found it did not show the same
increase in ‘extreme heat‘.

Still, Dr. Wolkovich had some
advice for wine producers to try to
adapt to climate change. “We need
more diversity in the grapes we grow.

Choosing heat-tolerant varieties
helps, but we also need to be
mindful of when those grapes grow
and ripen. Timing is everything.”
INTERNATIONAL BOTTLER & PACKER | JULY 2025



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