The Taste Of Climate In Every Sip: Champagne Problems

The most intense growing months of many of the world’s vineyards are upon us. With harvests a few short weeks away, growers and winemakers are guiding their crops through the delicate and sometimes torturous dance of rain and sunlight, baking hot days and hoped-for cool dewy nights. This, even as raging floods, fires, hail storms, and searing droughts threaten and strike with greater frequency.

For those businesses vying for a place at the tables of consumers around the world, it is a battle fought on the soil, well before it is fought in the marketplace. Drinks giant Moët Hennessy is confronting the struggle globally. And one of its most deliberate transitions to twenty-firstcentury climate sensitive farming strategies is well underway in its Champagne business, whose vineyards are less than an hour’s train away from the company’s home offices.

Weather vs Cultivation: Who’s Winning?

Sandrine Sommer is the company’s chief sustainability officer. “We are already facing the necessity of adapting to climate change in every vineyard we manage,” she told me in Paris recently. “Experiencing a range of extreme weather events – from droughts and floods to wildfires, hail, and frost – we are not spared from these challenges anywhere in the world. Earlier harvests are increasingly common, yield loss is more frequent, and we observe changes in grape acidity and sugar levels.”

At Columbia University’s Lamont- Doherty Earth Observatory, climate scientist Benjamin Cook sees grape cultivation, in general, as one of the best documented examples of the inextricable connection between climate, terroir and flavor. He co-authored a 2020 paper on the topic in a National Academy of Sciences peer-reviewed journal. The study articulates a now widely held belief that diversification in the strains of grapes that vineyards cultivate will be decisive as the planet continues to change.

The Monoculture Of Champagne Vineyards

Viticulturists agree monoculture aggravates climate and ecological distress. You only need to recall the “Dust Bowl” years when “king cotton” helped plunge the United States into years of agricultural and economic chaos. Given the history, the rolling hillsides of France’s Champagne region, though tidy and harmonious, are this side of shocking to today’s newest generation of soil guardians and sustainability. “You look and it’s a sea of wine grapes and there’s nothing else. There’s no biodiversity,” observed Caine Thompson, head of sustainability for O’Neill Vintner & Distillers, and managing director of Robert Hall Winery in Paso Robles, California.

A champion of regenerative agricultural practices and a leader for the movement in his own region of California, Thompson travelled to Champagne recently to study the efforts of MH Champagne makers to reintroduce environmental balance. He says he’s encouraged by what he calls a “poly-cultural” movement afoot at the Ruinart Champagne House in Reims. “They’re practicing agro-forestry, incorporating native plant species back into the vineyards. It was amazing to see the recently introduced native grasses, oaks, fruit trees, and more.” Rounding out the environment with growth that is more natural makes an eco-system more abundant with life of all kinds, above, below, and within the soil, and as a result more resilient.

Competitors are elbow to elbow in the Champagne region, among them Laurent-Perrier, Taittinger, Perrier-Jouët, Mumm, Louis Roederer, and more. This appellation is the birthplace of Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, Krug, Dom Pérignon, and Ruinart, the oldest established Champagne house, whose chalk cellars are part of the region’s UNESCO World Heritage Site. Ruinart will mark its 300^th anniversary in 2029.

The evidence of both care in the fields and the impact of climate is in the bottle, Ruinart winemaker Diane de Chevron Villette explained as she walked me through tastes of a couple of different vintages there. The product is held to very strict standards. To carry the unique title of “champagne,” the specifications of the Champagne appellation do not permit the irrigation of vines. This is based on the realities of the unique terroir. Champagne is located in the north, which ordinarily provides sufficient rainfall throughout the year, although climate change is now presenting challenging conditions. As an offset, the composition of the region’s soil helps: the ancient chalky soil of the region both retains and releases water efficiently. Still, as a result of ever-changing conditions, the winemaker says, every year produces a unique product, reflecting the variability of rain and sunshine in any given year. In 2023, Ruinart launched Blanc Singulier. This champagne, says Sommer, “showcases the effects of climate change on Ruinart’s ‘Blanc de Blancs’ Champagne.”

The competition is intense among the big Champagne houses and volume sales since the pandemic ended have been off in general. Adrien Franceschi, MH global corporate projects manager, says changes in alcohol consumption habits appear to have something to do with it. “Champagne shipments reached 271 million bottles in 2024, marking a 9.2% decline compared to 2023. Overall, industry data shows that, in the first half of 2024, global sales of all alcoholic drinks fell by 11% year-over-year.”

The picture does appear to be brightening somewhat for champagne, according to drinks newsletter Shanken News Daily. The industry publication is reporting that U.S. wine and spirits wholesaler data shows champagne sales up, in general, for the first time in three years for the first half of 2025, across the industry. Although it’s not clear if this means a renewed enthusiasm for the product or accelerated buying to hedge potential tariffs and higher prices.

Do Consumers Care?

At the end of the day, consumer expectations and preferences shape the marketplace, and at Moët Hennessy, Sommer believes that is trending in a positive way for the environment. “Consumers worldwide are increasingly conscious and curious about the origins and manufacturing processes of products, including wines and spirits. They are aware that our products are crafted from specific terroirs, using unique savoir-faire.” In 2022, despite the acute travel limitations of the Covid pandemic, scientists, industry representatives and journalists travelled hundreds of miles for the “World Living Soils Forum” in Provence, organized and led by Moët Hennessy. The forum focused a hot light on the regenerative agriculture movement, inspiring new conversations and deep thinking about the future of the world’s soils and new practices globally.

Ultimately, every bottle of champagne, every sip of wine, every glass of spirits holds someone’s work of art and, like all art, the verdict is the prerogative of the consumer. “While we may lack comprehensive global data on consumer expectations regarding regenerative practices,” says Sommer, “we believe it is important, and our responsibility, to educate and raise awareness about living soils.”