By H. Sterling Burnett -December 28, 2021
In a segment in CBS’s long-running weekly news program, 60 Minutes, Leslie Stahl interviewed a few vintners in France who say climate change is destroying its wine and champagne industries. Data show otherwise. Although France suffered low production in 2021 due to a combination of drought and untimely cold weather, global grape production has done well, repeatedly setting records over the past three decades. Local weather conditions, not global climate change, now, as always, drive grape growing success.
In the news segment, titled “Effects of climate change taking root in the wine industry,” 60 Minutes opines:
What are the signs of global warming? Glaciers are melting at an increasingly rapid pace. Persistent droughts are spreading. Well, we have another to tell you about – wine, as in what you probably cracked open for Christmas dinner.
Farmers who grow the grapes have seen the effects of climate change in the soil, in the roots of the vines, and the yields of their crops.
2021 has been a particularly bad year for wine production in France and, to a lesser extent, globally. Stahl interviewed several long-time wine producers in France who linked the low wine production in 2021 to climate change. Data indicates 2021 is an anomaly, not indicative of a long-term trend which might implicate a changing climate. France and other top wine producing countries in the region experienced a particularly bad weather year.
“The almost catastrophic figures from France were caused by very unfavorable climatic [sic] conditions during most of the growing season: frost, hail, storms, and humidity in the summer (causing diseases),” writes Forbes magazine in an article discussing global wine producing hardships in 2021.
As Forbes detailed, although weather conditions in Europe were unfavorable to wine production in 2021, other countries were producing more wine than in the previous year:
The USA, the world’s third-biggest wine producer, increased the wine volume by 6 percent to reach 24.1 million hectoliters (Mhl). A “hectoliter” is a metric unit of volume equal to 100 liters. Australia, Chile, Argentina and South Africa, who usually jockey for positions five to eight in the world ranking, did well, or very well in some cases: up 30 percent for both Australia and Chile (to 14.2 Mhl and 13.4 Mhl respectively), +16 percent for Argentina (12.5 Mhl), and a more modest +2 pecent for South Africa (10.6 Mhl).
Grape production, as with all other crops, varies from year to year, due to a variety of factors, such as the local weather conditions, farm inputs, and acres planted. Despite the yearly ups and downs, the record clearly shows, as the earth has modestly warmed grape production has increased. As vintners in different countries have faced different challenges, they have adapted, planting the varietals that best suit their particular soils and weather conditions.
Indeed, data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), shows the five highest years of grape production on record have all occurred since 2013. (See the figure)
Contrary to the impression left by 60 Minutes’ story, during the recent period of modest warming, new records for global grape production were set in 2013, 2015, and most recently in 2018. Between 1988 and 2019—the last year for which FAO has data and also the second largest production year on record—grape production increased by approximately 33 percent.
Looking at individual wine producing countries, FAO data show that grape production has grown substantially in seven of the top 10 wine producing countries between 1988 and 2019.
Wine production does not directly track grape production. Demand, market prices, competing demands for grapes, and coordinated market strategies—which some might call collusion or an attempt to fix prices—can limit or contribute to an increase in wine production. For example, global wine production dramatically increased in 2018 in Europe and globally, it being the second highest production year since 2000. In response, the study “State of the World Vitivinicultural Sector In 2020,” found several “Italian, French and Spanish producers’ associations to fix the vinified volumes at a level lower to that of 2019 because of the expected drop in demand on the global wine market, the favorable weather led to a bountiful harvest in many regions of the EU.”
So, in 2020, wine producers in France, Italy, and Spain, were trying to suppress wine production to manipulate the market due the previous year’s high yields. This happened just a year before inclement weather conditions resulted in poor wine growing conditions. One year’s bad weather does not equal climate change induced problems for the wine industry.
Indeed, data show 2018 was the second highest year for wine production in the since 2000, and 2013 was the third highest production year.
As the CBC explained recently, weather and climate, although often confused or treated as interchangeable by corporate media outlet like CBS’s 60 Minutes, are two different things.
[T]he most common terms — like weather and climate — can be deceiving.
Those two terms are sometimes used interchangeably and while they are linked, they actually refer to different things.
With weather and climate, the biggest factor is time.
Weather refers to the short term.
…
Weather systems can also bring extremely unusual conditions to an area ….
…
[C]limate is defined by long-term averages.
Climate refers to the atmospheric trends for an area.
It takes a look at specific weather conditions for a certain region and averages them over a set period of time.
Climate change is accounted for by most government agencies involved with monitoring weather and climate as changes in average conditions over a thirty year period. In 2021 France experienced a bad spell of weather which affected grape production. There has been no significant change in average temperatures or precipitation in France or in most European wine producing countries over the past 30 years.
While the weather outside may have been frightful for wine producers in France in 2021, contrary to 60 Minutes’ story, data clearly show long-term climate change is not devastating wine production there or anywhere else.
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. is managing editor of Environment & Climate News and a research fellow for environment and energy policy at The Heartland Institute. Burnett worked at the National Center for Policy Analysis for 18 years, most recently as a senior fellow in charge of NCPA’s environmental policy program. He has held various positions in professional and public policy organizations, including serving as a member of the Environment and Natural Resources Task Force in the Texas Comptroller’s e-Texas commission.
It is so precious when 60 Minutes attributes frost damage to global warming.
Isn’t it?
They destroyed one of my bosses. She was never the same after appearing on the fantasy show.
They are good at destroying people.
That is CIA broadcasting for you.
I’ll drink to that
60 minutes ranks right along with the New York Times- everything they publish is a lie and they’ve been busted for it numerous times. Look up the exploding Ford pickups- rigged with pyrotechnics.
Not just the pyrotechnics;
They overfilled the tank, then towed it into position so that none of the gas would be used.
They then put the wrong gas cap on it, one that was guaranteed to come off easily.
Finally they lined up the sled so that it would directly impact the most vulnerable point.
Even with all the careful stage setting, when the scene was shot, the collision caused some gas to spew out of the filler tube which was lit by the pyrotechnics. And that was it. The fire went out leaving the fire men who had been brought in for safety, nothing to do. The firemen even joked that they hoped whoever paid for this demonstration could get their money back.
To fix this problem, when aired, they showed a picture of the impact and the flaming gas spewing out, then they cut the cameras before the cameras before the fire burned itself out.
The whole thing was a scam, from frame 1.
I thought it was a Chevy truck…
And they were caught because their video clearly shows a pyrotechnic firing before the staged collision occurred.
Just a few seconds early.
They needed the pyrotechnic because their trial run collisions failed to throw sparks and light the gasoline.
The pyrotechnic guaranteed that they would get fire at the tank.
It was Dateline on NBC that did this not 60 Minutes
(I replied here so it shows up higher in the chain)
They all lie. None are immune. There are only two things that matter to the media: First, and always first, is the political party; second is the sensationalism, as long as that message does not damage the party.
One thing that has become abundantly clear these past 20 months about these “news” organizations is that when the party changes, they change too without missing a beat. Their strongly held belief last week is forgotten because the party now has the opposite belief and therefore, these same people now strongly hold the opposite belief. That is worship, not reporting.
Remember that the vast majority of American news organizations are democrat party worshipers. If the democrat party tomorrow says climate change is a fraud, every single one of these reporters will parrot that message. The fact that yesterday they believed the opposite doesn’t matter. The party matters first. Don’t believe me? Don’t you think it was odd that the media said mask didn’t work and then instantly all over the world at the exact same time we were told we must wear facemasks?
Truth never matters. If they have to lie to protect their party, they will. If they have to lie to create a sensationalized story, they will. The media has no scruples or honor. Don’t think for a second that Fox News is somehow more truthful than CNN, because they are not. Fox News just has a different party they worship. Of course, this is not to say that the media doesn’t sometimes tell the truth or sometimes goes against the party. Since nobody is perfect, those mistakes will happen.
Quote from ‘Lawrence of Arabia‘ is, I believe, quite appropriate …
Career diplomat, Mr.Dryden to journalist Jackson Bentley discussing whether Lawrence has been lied to for convenience …
“Dryden : If we’ve been telling lies, you’ve been telling half-lies. A man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth. But a man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it.”
“Don’t think for a second that Fox News is somehow more truthful than CNN”
While Fox has been leaning further and further Left for some time now, to compare them to CNN is absurd.
Even better, try the Fox Business Network instead, especially “Fox News Prime Time, Larry Kudlow, and Life Liberty and Levin”, for a total change of perspective.
Actually that was Dateline NBC not 60 Minutes and it was a Chevy pickup not Ford
What – didn’t you know that global warming causes global cooling?
Indeed, just as true as: “War is peace.Freedom is slavery.Ignorance is strength.”
“It is so precious when 60 Minutes attributes frost damage to global warming.”
exactly, hence the “climate change™” and “climate weirding™” name change that covers all bases.
Control the language, leftism 101.
I have been hearing about this for nearly 10 years from various wine clubs I belong to. Thanks for the informed article.
Looks like Leslie Stahl tried to put a different spin on the old adage “In Wine There Is Truth”.
In whine there is truth
It’s the whine
The medieval warm period was known for it’s wine production in Europe. The UK got into grape growing
Indeed.
A more stark comparison would be with the Little Ice Age. link Never mind bad years. They had bad centuries that pretty much wiped out the wine industry in northern Europe.
The natural variability deniers (aka alarmists) have zero clues about history. Otherwise they would rejoice in the beneficial warming we now experience.
Most of the alarmists are anti human. It’s a cult.
And Viking wine in Greenland – their ecords in the Vatican of Church wine production are well known.
That clinches the MWP.
From a pure Eco-warrior point of view, all farms are bad.
But from a Neo-Marxist point of view only farms that can be marketed to support the victim/perpetrator narrative are bad. Hence viticulture farmers are climate victims but cattle farmers are climate perpetrators.
What are the signs of global warming? Glaciers are melting at
an increasingly rapid pace. Persistent droughts are spreading.
__________________________________________________
Fact free assertions
The so-called mainstream media consists of a loosely connected organization
that in effect produces a never ending Gish Gallop of propaganda.
I read the same thing Steve and thought, “These are outright lies. It’s a level of propaganda North Korea would be proud to produce.”
“These are outright lies. It’s a level of propaganda North Korea would be
proudembarrassed to produce.”You’re welcome
Very good – made me laugh!
From a physiological and economic perspective, it’s hard to beat corn ethanol, >198 proof. Current spot price is about $2.25/gallon. One could spike a lot of Kool-Aid for a couple of dollars.
That 198 proof is strictly bring your own bottle if want consume some.
Except the bill of course – $3 trillion.
What should we put for the tip?
Biden’s mere $20 billion for clean napkins?
I stopped watching 60 Minutes years ago. I see I’ve missed nothing.
Bingo!
About 30 years ago, 60 minutes covered a story that I happened to know a lot about, having been close to a number of the people directly involved. Everything presented was either completely wrong, or so badly slanted as to be unrecognizable.
About the only thing they got right, was the spelling of the names.
Atlanta commentator Dick Williams once referred to these shows as being Dragnet inverted.
Remember the old Dragnet show, it always started of with a tag line about how the stories were true, and only the names were changed to protect the innocent.
In these shows the names are the only they kept, everything else was changed to fit the producers agenda.
I may have you beat. I stopped watching it in 1969 when they interviewed an executive from the company I worked for and reshot the questions after the interview to make the answers appear to be the opposite of what was originally intended. The only segment I ever have watched since then was the interview they did of Rush Limbaugh. They didn’t touch him.
Yeah, you have me beat! I think I stopped watching 60 Minutes when The Simpsons started airing at the same time. So, a cartoon show held more appeal than that “investigative news magazine”.
Then you missed a good one, “Navy pilots describe encounters with UFOs”
I don’t normally watch 60 Minutes, either, but this time it came on right after the football game was over on the same channel, and they teased a climate change story, so I watched that part of the program.
Every scientific report challenging CAGW, every response to a poor climate study and every response supporting good climate studies should automatically include a clear and concise explanation of what is climate and what is weather. It needs to be repeated over and over again.
That would be like a magician starting out his act by saying “first I’m going to hide these cards up my sleeve.”
Question
Do French vintners get more handouts if they proclaim one bad year is climate change?
France is the spiritual home of protectionist agriculture policy, are there financial incentives in place that increase if climate dun it?
Exceptionally this year there is compensation for losses due to the heavy frosts.
It falls under the category of “calamités agricoles”, and has nothing to do with the climate, but what we call a “aléa météorologique”, a random/unpredictable weather event.
Compensations are 20% for losses between 30 and 50%, 30% for losses between 50 and 70% and 40% for losses greater than 70%.
No Paris Assemblé would take the risk of vintners going out of business, no wine on the table. Same for most food.
>>frost, hail, storms, and humidity<< clear signs of warming and drought
the best wines are made during the worst years. you can’t win on this one.
When grape prices are low, due to supply exceeding demand, vintners will sell their excess grapes to producers of other grape products such as grape juice, raisons, and other processed foods, etc. So a drop in wine production does not necessarily mean a drop in grape production, as this post points out. It might actually mean excess grape production.
In point of fact, in 2021 grape supplies are up in both Europe and the US while demand is down. Low prices beget reduced production.
As for wine products worldwide, Bloomberg reports that yields are down somewhat in 2021, but wine quality is way up.
Nothing is simplistic like warmunists always claim. As if any of those knuckleheads knows the first thing about business, the law of supply and demand, or the difference between quality and quantity.
Have you heard of the Jewish wine…
“I just want to live in Miami!”
The French wine industry is suffering because of climate change … so sad. Meanwhile production elsewhere is increasing so who cares besides the French?
Do these idiots (Stahl, etc.) know what a vintage means? They are very important in Europe, less so in the US and South America (Chile, Argentina) because fall WEATHER is notoriously variable in French & German growing regions, while less so in the American regions (esp. California).
Climate change might even make the UK a wine region to be reckoned with! Foggy damp weather is even beneficial to Sauternes, German Auslese wines & Hungarian Tokai – it encourages a fungus called pourriture noble (Fr. = Noble Rot = Ger. Edelfäule) which gives these wonderful wines their exquisite character. Sadly, California cannot match them, because fall WEATHER does not encourage the fungus.
“fall WEATHER is notoriously variable in French & German growing regions”…”Foggy damp weather is even beneficial to Sauternes”
Sorry you have no idea what you are on about.
Have you ever been to Alsace or Bordeaux??
Yet another armchair expert are you??
The foggy damp weather was referring to the UK not France.
“Climate change might even make the UK a wine region to be reckoned with! Foggy damp weather is even beneficial to Sauternes, German Auslese wines & Hungarian Tokai – it encourages a fungus called pourriture noble (Fr. = Noble Rot = Ger. Edelfäule) which gives these wonderful wines their exquisite character.”
well you are welcome to talk bollox about the cursed foggy island on the edge of damp sea air…
You don’t however have any qualification to talk about Sauternes, Monbazillac. or Alsace vendange tardive..
German wine is shit, which is why Germans come to Alsace to buy… and Hungarian Tokay is an ordinary wine of low quality, nothing even close to the Alsace Tokay-pinot gris, which when done top quality and in Vendage tardive is one of the great wines of the world.
sorry just get your facts straight, alsace doesn’t do vendange when it’s foggy and the weather there is some of the hottest in EU!
Geopolitics has got up the piggish nose of a Sommelier, not good for judgement.
From the article: “Although France suffered low production in 2021 due to a combination of drought and untimely cold weather,”
I saw that 60 Minutes segment, and the problem in France was *cold* weather, but they kept trying to blame it on CO2-caused climate change/warming.
A 60 minute show with 60 seconds of viable information.
Keep up the good work CBS!
Anyone who has ever done grape picking in France knows the real situation on the ground (I have done 3 times!).
The real drama in France is falling production because of COLD.
The entire (historic) area behind Orleans has more or less stopped production.
This year the same late frosts caused a shortfall all the way down to the south of France.
Having said that since I did this first in 1981-82 and until 2 yrs ago I never saw any real change in either the quality of the wines, white and red in 40yrs.
The best years for Alsace white were 1988-91, which were some of the warmest summers.
Production has increased because of progress in agricultural methods, improved quality control, thanks to international competition, and widespread use of grape picking machinery, as well as cheap labour from eastern Europe.
This kind of says it all, nothing much to do with climate at all, but french farmers and wine producers always find ways to moan to get more “emergency” subsidies” from “bad weather”…..
Of course the resident plonker Griff will pipe up, never having picked a grape in his life, claiming more crap propaganda
Yes.
You know what you are talking about. You understoood the great CHANGE in French wines was due to better agronomy (and less traditional, local “knowledge”) and the introduction in the last four decades of better technology of production; especially in VITICULTURE, that is to say, the production of the grapes; but also in OENOLOGY, i.e., the technique to treat the grape juice until it becomes a wine. And this is occurring more or less all around Europe, depending on the weight of the “agonomic traditions” of each country (I often joke: as aristocrats in Europe have “blue blood” in their veins, so does grapevine have “blue sap” in their vessels; meaning that in the “traditional agronomy” of Europe it seems that the common knowledge of plant physiology and biochemistry does not apply to it; “grapevines are different” is commonly heard to “specialists”).
That said, we must not disregard the influence of weather, each year different. But the best the scientific knowledge is used, the less the weather will influence the quality of the wine.
One last note: it is not only the French farmers and wine makers who try to find any reason to moan to ger more “emergency” subsidies: you find that behavior all over European agriculture, in every production, in every country.
There is an irony there.
All French vines have an American stock because of the 1855 phylloxera pest, originating in the US, not a problem for that stock.
And then the US and Australia were producing such rot-gut, they hauled over French experts. Result? Much better, even award winning US and Aussie wines, and again modern American production techniques brought back home to France.
A win-win I’ll say!
Anyone remember the fabulous 1990 Bordeaux’s? Not sure what weather prevailed then… Rain in the harvest time window is a major problem, especially in Burgoyne with helicopters blowing water off the slopes!
A 1998 Petrus Pomerol will set you back about €3,500 or $4000 the bottle these days.
In 1995 a 1990 Petrus or others too – they said Japanese collectors, who did not even drink it! Pure speculation. Same in Burgoyne.
I don’t get a flying f..ck about what Bonbon bloviates about French wine, or invented ironies.
Harvest in Bourgogne is literally down the road..
Those great Cote de Beaune, Marsonnay, Nuit st George, Chassagne – Montrachet don’t need you inputting crap about helicopters or weather or yankee methods.
As usual your crapomatic inputs are clueless junk…like those about Russia.
If you have never seen the Heli’s blowing water off the slopes you have no clue.
Go to Beaune, have a look around.
Maybe you still use your filthy feet (hooves?) to press the grapes?
“…climate change is destroying its wine and champagne industries. Data show otherwise.”
It certainly does.
This chart shows a categorisation of vintage (millésimes) in different wine growing regions in France by year. 1=poor to 5=exceptional.
This should show a worsening situation because of “climate change™”, but of course it doesn’t, we’ve had some excellent wine growing weather over the last five years.
yes 2006-2013 were not great times.
2019-2020 too young, but anything from 2018 was great, 3.85E for a great bordeaux from 2018 at my local supermarket.
If this kind of “climate change” can make more stuff like this with a glut so large because of ideal weather, let’s have lots more of that “climate change”! I’m all for it,
even get a nice tan picking the stuff instead of freezing oil skins with pouring rain and soaking fingers..
Been there done that, we drew a line at picking grapes on steel wires during a thunderstorm…!!
Cold was never good for agriculture, esp in Greenland at the end of the MWP.
Of course they cannot allow the only effective differentiation among Coof, Influenza and Rhinovirus. Only the Coof symptoms include dysgeusia and ansomia. Self-test regularly and frequently and re-test, tracking specificity and sensitivity.
https://youtu.be/8KW6ctTZfw4
Put yourself in their shoes. Every week they have to come up with something to attract viewers and advertisers. The path from “truth” to “plausibility” to “just make it up as you go” is very short….
60 Minutes has a long history of distorting the news with wine prominently pictured. Recall that they fixated on red wine when the research came out on resveratrol even though in nature the grapes don’t always produce the beneficial chemical and the amount of wine consumption needed to get a beneficial dose of resveratrol is massive. Television producers as a group are fast and loose with the truth in between stealing from original content sources for personal gain.
…don’t produce the beneficial chemical all the time…
Two segments. On wine! OMG what’s to happen to my favorite bordeaux? Tells you all you need to know about what remains of the “60 Minutes” audience.
Anybody everybody who wants to be a parent, teacher, professor, public leader or member of the civil police should be utterly banned from consuming the stuff and be regularly tested while/if in office
(Thats the end of Bojo, his entire life in fact, just for starters)
And no, this is me being some puritanical over-zealous spoilsport and fun waster
What I say is based on 45 years experience of the stuff, 25 yrs on and 20yrs off
Alcohol destroys human minds and personalities – the most pernicious evil horrible and awful is that, as I said, it turns them into liars.
Would you *really* feel safe in a society where all the strings and levers of power are operated/pulled by liars.
Do you ‘feel safe’ right now?
Peta
Sincere congratulations on 20 years of sobriety. Having family who suffer alcoholism I know that it can be true that zero is the safe limit for some, perhaps for you.
Yet 40-some years of moderation also show me that for most of us, there is a higher limit. It’s not for me to prescribe your limit, nor for you to prescribe mine.
err …fermented products are know to be beneficial to the human organism.
They make people live longer, the french being a case of “eating all the wrong things”, but live longer (mostly) happy lives.
The french thing about red wine (which is low alcohol -up to only 13%) is known for centuries to be beneficial for a healthy diet, as are eg. fermented milk products made with non pasteurised milk..
Does anyone even watch 60 minutes anymore?
No one should ever watch broadcast propaganda on their legacy telescreens. The Gods of the Copybook Headings will return with a vengeance.
Dudes, to save the planet we must end ‘fermentation’. One of the biggest producers of CO2 is the alcohol producing industries. Beer, wine, and spirits must all be banned.
Ban ‘Fermentation’…Save the planet….
Are you mad? What would be the point of saving it?
Ecclesiasticus 31:27“Wine is as good as life to a man, if it be drunk moderately: what life is then to a man that is without wine? for it was made to make men glad.”
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN:
“Wine is a constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.”
From the Teeshirt:
A Day Without Wine Is Like…Just Kidding, I Have No Idea
I did not watch the program but did hear references to it in the MSM. I doubt I would be able to stomach the whole thing. Then last night got more of the story from a true believer.
Was there something in the program about a general shift of grape production northward in response to changing conditions? IE a shift that can be documented?
I would love to know the real truth of this but who has the time to do a detailed debunking of this kind of story…