Bordeaux 2050: The Wine from The Future That Tastes Like Global Warming

We hear climate change, we read about climate change, and now we get to taste it.

According to the United Nations Climate Change Conference of Paris (COP21), by 2050, the Bordeaux wine region in France will suffer from severe climate conditions: a rise of 2 to 4 °C in temperature, exceptional hailstorms and flooding, and intense drought.

All this can destroy the land and one of France’s most precious legacies: Bordeaux wine. 

French Association of Journalists for the Environment (AJE) wanted to transform this data into something real and tangible. Partnering with researchers, scientists and journalists, the AJE used climate projection for the next 30 years to create a wine that simulates the exact taste of a Bordeaux grown in the future: BORDEAUX 2050.

With the help of the Laboratory Excell, based in Merignac, at the heart of the Bordeaux wine region, the AJE created a type of wine on an experimental basis, by assembling red wines from two grape varieties typical of the Bordeaux region, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, produced nowadays under more Southern latitudes (Languedoc-Roussillon, Tunisia and the Mediterranean Basin).

“Cultivated under these much warmer and drier climates, with a shorter growing cycle than the one currently known in Bordeaux, these grape varieties have very different analytical and, above all, organoleptic profiles”, stated Pascal Chatonnet, researcher, oenologist and founder of the Laboratory Excell.

The result is a Bordeaux more dense, less refined, less elegant, with a dry and tannic finish.

“After several months of hard work, both for the data gathering, and directly in the laboratory, we can say we created more than a simple wine: Bordeaux 2050 is the symbol of our responsibility towards the planet”, say Riccardo Fregoso and Julien Chiapolini, Executive Creative Directors at McCann Paris.

“So what’s next? So many things are within our reach but one of them is easier than the rest: convincing ourselves that global warming is a reality”, concludes Yves Leers, author, wine expert, and journalist at AJE.