Vins d'Angleterre?

Spring fell gently over much of Northern Europe this year. There were mild rains but no snap frosts or ruinous hailstorms to threaten the vineyards in bud. Summer followed with a glorious run of toasty days and balmy nights, coaxing the grapes to one of the earliest harvests in memory. Shiny as baubles, now the last of the fruit hangs heavy and sweet on the vines, begging to be plucked and pressed. It looks like another banner year for wine--in England.

That's right, Angleterre. The terroir of the pint and Pimm's has a new habit. Long a hobby at home and a perennial joke abroad--especially to those vintage snobs across the channel--British wine has come into its own. Sparkling whites made there have outscored some of the classiest champagnes at international blind tastings. London's supermarkets are stocking homegrown wine, and British Airways doesn't take off without it. Even the queen has been known to serve Britain's best to royal guests.

The U.K.'s real benefactor comes from an even higher jurisdiction: the atmosphere. Forget computers, corporate consolidation, chemical aromatics and all the other tricks of modern viticulture. What's really got wine makers of the world in a froth is global warming. Italy's Piedmont, home of the stately Barolo, and Germany's legendary Mosel, have been on a roll for the last sunny decade. Although the brutal heat of the past summer took 15,000 lives in France alone, some European vintners are calling this harvest the best in memory. "This year is fantastic," says Ian Berwick, general secretary of the United Kingdom Vineyards Association. "If every summer is going to be like this we should be grateful to global warming."

Don't let the cork popping fool you: wine makers know that weather is a fickle ally, and the warming trend isn't all good news. If climate forecasts are correct, in the next decade the seasons will continue to grow shorter, rain patterns less predictable and sunshine more intense. Soon, some cool-weather grapes, like the delicate Gruner Veltliner, will no longer fare well in their traditional regions (Austria's Kamptal), while formerly useless land will start sprouting superb wine grapes. The news won't be all bad, as this past summer attests. But the relative advantage among vintners may shift radically.

Among those best equipped to deal with climate change are likely to be the New World vintners from Australia, Chile, South Africa, California and elsewhere who've had to find innovative ways of dealing with everything from tricky weather to hidebound consumers. Some vintners, particularly in Chile, also seem to be blessed with climates that buffer the worst effects of global warming. Traditional vintners, who've prided themselves on centuries of wine-making prowess, may find the old rules failing them. "A warming world will make decades of expertise in wine making irrelevant," says Robert Pincus, a climatologist at the University of Colorado. "With climate change no one knows what to expect 25 years from now."

Pincus, a wine lover, recently made a 25-year forecast for prime wine regions of France, Germany and Austria, based on middle-of-the-road predictions of global warming. The outlook is varied, but in any case, changes loom. Balmier weather will favor clammy old England (even Scotland). In Germany's Mosel, where vineyards nestle in a narrow climatic niche, increased rains and flooding could drive some vineyards off their centuries-old plots, and close down others altogether. What will become of Austria's distinctive eiswein (ice wine), pressed from grapes that sit on the vines until they freeze, when the frost comes later, leaving the fruit exposed to rain and wind? No one knows: climate change is turning viticulture into a guessing game.

By most estimates, climate hasn't even warmed by 2 degrees Celsius in the past century, perhaps less in temperate regions like Europe. But it's difficult to overstate the effects of even small changes on vine growing. Grapevines are weeds, but teasing out the sugars just so requires exactly the right amount of sunlight. Too little, and the fruit won't ripen or will be too acidic; too much, and the vines shut down like a thermostat. ...