Not a week ago, I was seriously considering prostituting my wines to get entry into the II International Conference on Climate Change and Wine hosted in Barcelona. For years, Al Gore (the keynote speaker for the event) has been one of my role models, a man willing to stand up for truth, acceptance and change on both the micro and macro level. His film, An Inconvenient Truth, shocked and frightened me into seeing how dramatically the world is changing, yet comforting me to know that change is possible if we’re willing to see the reality for what it is. Clearly, with a conference boasting of an impressive list of speakers fighting for conservation in winemaking including, Pancho Campo (a pioneer in conservation and winemaking, as well as the host) and Dr. David Smart (renowned scientist at UC Davis), just to name a few, I was eager to attend.

Years ago, a close friend of mine shared a personal mantra of his that reminded me of Al Gore’s message: we are all comfortable being uncomfortable. I love this expression because it sums up exactly what humans tend to do when life gets rocky; they fall into complacence. Rather than ripping away the blinders and accepting that we are all responsible for this planet, many choose to keep them on, blaming and giving excuses for why temperatures are rising, glaciers are melting and storms are increasing in intensity. Coincidence? I think not!

Climate Change in Spain

A few years back, Decanter wrote an interesting article on the consequences of climate change on Spanish vintners like Bodegas Torres, reporting that:

Increasingly hostile conditions associated with climate change are forcing vintners to head north.

The most dire predictions call for up to half …