Global Warming Spawns Wine In U.K.
Source: CBS News
Global Warming Spawns Wine In U.K.
LONDON, Sept. 25, 2006
(CBS)Â Somewhere glaciers may be melting. Somewhere storms may be blowing and waters may be rising. But in England, global warming is having a very different effect.
Grapes are growing in Britain, and though “the English wine country” is not a phrase you’ve likely heard before, CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips reports that you’d be wise to get used to it.
A dozen of the hottest U.K. summers on record have come in the last 15 years, and there’s a pattern emerging.
Global warming comes with many potentially disastrous consequences across the globe. But in a land known for cold, damp and gloom, they’re loving it. For some, global warming is good.
Grape grower David Ealand is doing good business thanks to the shifting climate. “The sugars are higher this year I think than we’ve ever known before,” he says.
More proof of the heat? Try olives. Not from Italy or Spain. From England. Again, blame it on the weather.
“It not just hot hot hot, they need long. And that’s what were seeing, we’re seeing a lengthening growing season that will suit olives,” Mark Diacono says.
The crop list goes on. After building an empire in part to satisfy their insatiable thirst for tea, the British are now finding they can grow the treasured leaves at home.
Jonathan Jones took a gamble seven years ago and put in some tea plants in his native country. He’s seen it pay off, big time.
“We’ve actually plucked tea in December, which is unbelievable. We didn’t expect that to happen,” Jones says, walking around his plantation in southern England.
You know that old line about “making hay while the sun shines?” For “hay” in England now, think tea, and olives, and wine.
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