CBS News published a November 28 article claiming climate change and warming temperatures are harming Italian wine production. Objective facts show – just as CFACT has shown for previous fake wine scares in Greece and California – that Italian wine is doing quite well as temperatures warm. Indeed, CBS News is making its false claims regarding Italian wine only one month after we debunked the same Italian wine scare promoted by other media outlets.

The CBN News article, titled “Climate change is threatening Prosecco vineyards: ‘The vine is like a thermometer,’” is largely comprised of an interview with a single Italian vineyard owner, Tenute Tomasella. Tomasella, according to CBS News, is reporting climate change and extreme weather events are negatively impacting his wine production.

“Climate change is a big problem,” Tomasella told CBS News. “When it’s hot, it’s very hot. When it’s raining, it rain very much.”

“The vineyard is like a thermometer. It’s very sensitive to temperature,” Tomasella added.

Well, if Italian vineyards are very sensitive to temperature, then the data show warming temperatures are becoming more ideal for Italian vineyards. As we noted in our earlier article:

“As CFACT documented last month, global wine production set a new record last year. Italy was no exception, as Italian wine production also set a new record in 2018. Italian wine production is down some in 2019, but wine analysts attribute the 2019 decline to wine producers deliberately growing fewer grapes this year because they had so much holdover wine from 2018. To the extent weather impacted the wine grapes that were grown, unusually late spring cold weather and frosts diminished output. Of course, as we are all lectured, global warming causes an earlier end to winter and an earlier start to spring. Without our recent modest global warming, this year’s cold spring would have been worse, this year’s late frosts would have been worse, and this year’s grape harvest would have been worse.”

Climate alarmists believe they should never let a good crisis go to waste, even if they have to invent a fake crisis to present the opportunity. Here at CFACT, however, we will hold them accountable for their false narrative.