Climate change isn't corking news

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Chardonnay, Hermitage, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne, Merlot, Pinot Noir - France and the production of classic wines go hand-in-hand. The French combine the cultural sophistication, attention to gastronomic detail and philosophical sang-froid to be able to produce wine that many sophisticated wine buffs regard as still the best in the World. (I don't know what sang-froid actually means, but it sounds about right, I think you'll agree.)

The British, on the other hand, lack that certain je ne sais quoi that seems necessary to make truly excellent wines. Sure, we try, but the bottom line is that our cultural makeup has led to Buckfast - a drink that's based around the idea that what wine really needs is extra alcohol and a shot of caffeine. Look what we did to cider - transforming it from a rich, complex drink produced lovingly around the village apple press, into an aperitif defined by the fact that you can buy a four litre bottle for three pounds.

Imagine the cultural decimation we'd cause if we were responsible for the French wine industry.

Well, in a climate changed future you won't have to imagine it, because the French wine industry will have to relocate northwards to cooler Britain. In fact, if things get really bad, they might have to relocate to Scotland, raising the horrific possibility of whisky production being displaced even further north, to a rapidly melting Arctic sea ice cap.

Our French office have produced a report that shows that if we don't tackle climate change and let temperatures rise, France will become too hot, too flooded, too climactically unstable and too full of pests to grow the vines which have shaped and defined what modern wine is.

While that sounds like it might not be an entirely bad thing from our point of view, we'll be too preoccupied to focus on making vin extraordinaire. We'll be too busy trying to cope with a world where the fact that France can't grow grapes any more is only the tip of a metaphorical iceberg of decreasing agricultural production, food and water shortages, rising sea levels and climactic instability.

So this is the choice facing us, and I shall say this only wernce: Continue business as usual and end up flooded, hungry and under the tyranny of wine-producing French overlords. Or, cut our carbon emissions and secure a future where we can get happily drunk on imported Chateuxneuf-du-Pape 2057 while relaxing in the shade of our wind turbine. I know which one I'm working towards.