As COP 25 gets going in Madrid, global warming alarmists are continuing their world tour of wine alarmism, now claiming climate change is decimating Napa Valley wine. This follows recent propaganda campaigns to claim global warming is decimating Italian wine (https://www.cfact.org/2019/11/07/npr-invents-fake-italy-wine-crisis/) and Greek wine (https://www.cfact.org/2019/09/04/climate-alarmists-claim-greek-wine-crisis-as-world-production-sets-new-record/). Just as CFACT has documented regarding the fake Italian and Greek wine scares, however, California wine production is thriving and setting new production records as the Earth modestly warms.

CBS News published an article in late October titled, “Climate change is coming for your Cabernet.” The article claims global warming is severely harming California wine production. “The big deal is the erratic nature that we have with climate here,” the CBS article quotes a California resident in wine country. “We have bugs we never heard of.”

The New York Times published a similar article titled, “In Napa Valley, Winemakers Fight Climate Change on All Fronts.” The article claims, “Wine producers are grappling with a maelstrom caused by a warming planet; heat waves, droughts, cold snaps, wildfires and more.”

“Every wine region has had to deal with some manifestation of climate change, but few have had to deal with as many devastating consequences as Napa Valley,” article continues.

In the real world, however, California wine production is doing quite well. The only “maelstrom” regarding climate change and California wine production is the record amount of high-quality wine being produced in our present, warmer climate.

“Following a long growing season characterized by moderate temperatures throughout the spring and summer, California’s 2018 harvest played out like a dream for winegrowers in regions across the state,” observed a press release on the 2018 growing season published by the Wine Institute.

“Overall, vintners are enthusiastic about both the quality and quantity of the 2018 vintage,” the Wine Institute added.

That sounds like very high praise. There is good reason why wine producers are enthusiastic about the quality and quantity of the most recent wine harvest. California wine production set a new record last year, despite what alarmists are claiming in the media.

“California wine grape growers and wineries knew the 2018 harvest was huge, and now we know just how big. Like the state overall, the North Coast wine grape harvest last year set new records in tonnage and pricing, according to figures released Wednesday,” reported the California wine country North Bay Business Journal.

New records should be considered good news. However, new wine production records interfere with an alarmist narrative that climate change is decimating wine production.

The Journal noted that the value of the 2018 crop was a whopping one-third higher than the previous record. Yes, you read that correctly – fully one-third higher than the previous record.

“The value of North Coast crop reached $2.01 billion last year, up about one-third from the previous high point of $1.5 billion in 2017, based on data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino and Lake counties.”

Once again, climate alarmists either didn’t bother to check the facts or made a deliberate decision to misrepresent the facts when making the claim that climate change is wreaking havoc on California wine production. Just another of the many episodes of the Climate Delusion.