Jul 9
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Sting's Winery Il Palagio: The Rockstar Who Makes Wine as Revenge
He got conned on the day he bought the place. What followed was two decades of very expensive, very biodynamic payback. Let’s be honest. When you hear “celebrity winery,” your expectations drop immediately. You picture a famous face on a label, grapes sourced from somewhere vaguely Italian, and a wine that costs three times what it should because of who’s smiling on the bottle. Fair assumption.…
🍷 Relais Alberti — Slow Luxury in Veneto
Some places in Italy impress you immediately. Others creep up on you slowly. Relais Alberti feels like the second kind. And honestly, those are usually the places people remember longer. Living in Veneto has changed the way I think about luxury travel completely. The older I get, the less impressed I am by places trying too hard to look expensive. I’d rather have: a quiet morning…
🍷 Relais Alberti — Slow Luxury in Veneto
Some places in Italy impress you immediately. Others creep up on you slowly. Relais Alberti feels like the second kind. And honestly, those are usually the places people remember longer. Living in Veneto has changed the way I think about luxury travel completely. The older I get, the less impressed I am by places trying too hard to look expensive. I’d rather have: a quiet morning…
🍾 Learning the secrets of sparkling winemaking from Tasmania's most influential vineyard. In this hands-on workshop at Josef Chromy Wines, we added different "dosages" to make Extra Brut, Brut, Extra Sec, and blends to our desired sweetness. Sampling between our bubbles and the control, we chose our favorite, made a custom label, and bottled it up for a one-of-a-kind souvenir! 🍾 winemaking sparklingwine JosefChromy TamarValley @Discover Tasmania
The Changing Taste of Wine: Climate Change and Its Impact on Winemaking and Viticulture
A Vineyard Doesn’t Forget the Weather. What if the wine you love today never tastes the same again?
Not because the winemaker changed the recipe. Not because the grape variety disappeared. But because the climate quietly rewrote the rules.
Somewhere, a vineyard that once thrived on predictable seasons is now waking up earlier, ripening faster, and struggling harder. And the truth is—wine remembers everything the weather forgets.
When Seasons Stop Behaving
For centuries, Winemaking and viticulture has been a delicate dance between human intuition and nature’s rhythm. Growers learned to read the land like a story: when to prune, when to harvest, when to wait.
But climate change is interrupting that story.
Warmer temperatures are pushing grapevines to bud earlier in the season. At first glance, that might sound harmless—even beneficial. But early budding increases vulnerability to late spring frosts, which can wipe out an entire season overnight.
Rainfall patterns are shifting too. Some regions face prolonged droughts, while others experience sudden, intense downpours. Both extremes stress the vine in different ways—affecting not just yield, but the very chemistry of the grapes.
And then there’s heat.
Too much of it.
When grapes ripen too quickly, sugar levels spike while acidity drops. The result? Wines that feel heavier, less balanced, and sometimes lacking the elegance they once had.
The subtlety—the soul of the wine—begins to shift.
The Quiet Transformation Inside Every Grape
Wine is often romanticised as an art. And it is. But it’s also deeply scientific.
A grape’s composition—its sugar, acid, tannin, and flavour compounds—is shaped by its environment. Even slight changes in temperature or sunlight can alter the final expression in the glass.
Climate change doesn’t just affect how grapes grow. It changes what they become.
In cooler regions, warming temperatures are opening new possibilities. Areas once considered too cold for viticulture are now producing high-quality wines. But in traditionally renowned regions, the story is more complicated.
Winemakers are noticing shifts in flavour profiles. Wines that were once known for bright acidity and delicate aromas are becoming richer, sometimes losing their signature identity.
So the question becomes: Is wine still a reflection of place—or is it becoming a reflection of change?
How Winemakers Are Adapting (and Reimagining Everything)
Resilience in winemaking has always been about adaptation. But today, that adaptation is happening faster than ever.
Growers are experimenting with new grape varieties—ones that can better tolerate heat and drought. Some are revisiting ancient or forgotten varietals that were once overlooked but are now surprisingly relevant.
Others are changing how they farm.
Adjusting canopy management to protect grapes from excessive sunlight
Shifting harvest times to preserve acidity
Exploring sustainable irrigation techniques in water-scarce regions
Moving vineyards to higher altitudes or cooler microclimates
In some cases, entire wine regions are evolving. It’s not just about saving the harvest anymore. It’s about redefining tradition without losing identity. The Emotional Weight of an Unpredictable Craft
There’s something deeply human about winemaking.
It requires patience, trust, and a willingness to let nature lead. But climate change introduces a new emotional layer—uncertainty. Imagine dedicating a year of labour to a vineyard, only to have a heatwave or storm undo everything in days.
Or watching a region known for its heritage slowly lose the characteristics that made it iconic.
This isn’t just an agricultural challenge. It’s a cultural one. Wine carries history. It tells stories of land, people, and time. When climate change alters those stories, it reshapes more than flavour—it reshapes identity.
A New Era of Terroir
Traditionally, terroir—the unique combination of soil, climate, and landscape—has been the foundation of great wine. But what happens when one of those elements becomes unstable?
We may be entering a new era where terroir is no longer static. Instead, it becomes dynamic—something that evolves year by year.
This shift challenges long-held assumptions in the wine world. It forces both producers and consumers to rethink what consistency means.
Maybe the future of wine isn’t about preserving sameness. Maybe it’s about embracing variation. After all, isn’t that what nature has always done? What This Means for the Wines We Love For wine lovers, climate change isn’t just a distant issue—it’s already in the glass.
You might notice:
Higher alcohol levels in certain wines
Softer acidity in regions known for crisp profiles
New styles emerging from unexpected places
Vintage variation becoming more pronounced
And while some of these changes can be exciting, they also raise important questions.
Will classic wine regions maintain their identity? Will new regions redefine what “great wine” means? And how will our own preferences evolve alongside these changes? The Quiet Responsibility We All Share It’s easy to think of climate change as something abstract—something happening “out there.” But wine has a way of making it personal.
Every bottle is a snapshot of a moment in time. A record of weather, soil, and human care. And increasingly, a reflection of environmental pressure.
The choices we make—what we support, what we consume, what we value—play a small but meaningful role in shaping the future of industries like winemaking.
Sustainability is no longer just a trend. It’s becoming essential. A Future Written in the Vines There’s a quiet resilience in vineyards. Despite the challenges, vines continue to grow. Winemakers continue to adapt. And wine continues to be made—each vintage telling a slightly different story.
Maybe that’s the lesson here. Not that climate change will erase wine as we know it. But that it will transform it.
And perhaps, in that transformation, we’ll learn to appreciate wine differently—not just for its taste, but for its ability to endure, evolve, and reflect a changing world. So the next time you pour a glass, pause for a moment.
Ask yourself: What story is this wine telling? And what kind of future do we want it to reflect?
trying a taste of the amber wine we made last fall from the sav blanc grapes
things to note:
i don't know the wine snob words but
i do know it's super young yet
lots of malic acid will mellow very gradually i don't think there's so much that it needs to be inoculated with a culture for MLF
definitely doesn't taste anything like a white sav blanc unsurprisingly
very rich and full, somewhat reminiscent of a madiera
a bit of sweetness apparent still behind the malic acid; fermentation is definitely over so we likely maxed out the yeast (lalvin qa23) - probably about 15-16% abv
this one will cellar well
probably bottle it before the summer heat and have an occasionally 375ml of it and then maybe in 2030 it'll be ready lol
(see my #amber wine tag for more about this adventure)
Concord Vinegar
A vinegar unintentionally created by neglect.
In 2022 or 2023 if I recall the year correctly, my farmer friend mentioned to me that he had a nice crop of Concord grapes, ready for picking. Joyously and without much of a plan I had harvested a moderately modest amount of them. I had only time enough to juice them as I am often quite busy in the middle months of the year. So the fresh juice was stored in mason jars in the back of the fridge. Nothing more. It was left mostly forgotten and I never got around to making that wine or whatever it was I was doing.
Fast forward: a couple months ago my fridge had enough of working properly that it decided to be done with keeping my food cold. So it was replaced. While emptying and moving the food I came upon one mason jar of perfectly fermented and then acidified vinegar.
It’s delicious, and delightful as I’ve never had vinegar like it before.
