The Brown Brothers wine making company has adapted to rising temperatures by heading south, to Tasmania’s east coast. Some years ago, the company concluded that climate change was its biggest future threat.

‘We are still being pressured by warming conditions, every year we find the fruit is getting riper a couple of weeks earlier,’ said Ross Brown, Executive Director, in an interview on ABC’s Landline in June 2016.

‘We wanted to find a cooler site, we looked throughout Victoria and finished up in Tasmania.’

Grapes are particularly sensitive to climate change. Warmer weather produces lower quality wine with a higher alcohol level. Low rainfall in wine growing regions has added to the challenge of increasing temperatures.

Professor Snow Barlow from the University of Melbourne has been tracking the influence of changing climate on grape production. A survey of 45 vineyards, some with records stretching back 100 years, showed that vintage was progressing or becoming earlier by one day per year.

Now, in some places, the heat is bringing forward – by two to three weeks – the ripening of red grapes. This means that they are ready for harvesting at the same time as white varieties, which presents logistical problems for vineyards accustomed to staggered harvesting.

Brown Brothers’ Tasmanian vineyard has its grapes ripening up to four weeks later than on the mainland. ‘The best flavour in grapes is when they ripen slowly and take the longest part of the summer to get right. Tasmanian fruit is all about complexity and flavour,’ Mr Brown said.

Another company, Treasury Wines, is also responding to the heat. They’re changing agricultural practices to delay ripening, such as leaving pruning until closer to spring.

Do you know of other businesses ‘heading south’?
What changes has your business made in response to climate change?