Can’t say I give a shit about wine but maybe this will get some people to care about the climate.
This is probably also affecting a lot of region specific cured and fermented foods. Cheeses, cured meat, even sour kraut and kimchi, could all be slowly changing.
Watched a Tom Scott video on Swiss cheese, apparently the bubbles were shrinking and the couldn't figure out why. Turned out as milk was being filtered better it was loosing the micro particles of dust/hay/etc that were acting as nucleation points for the CO²(?), so now they add in some particulate.
Talking with a chef I know apparently some cheese types are already at risk. They said we've been over-cloning certain strands of bacteria and they don't have enough genetic diversity anymore. I never thought we'd manage to fuck up germs too...
Needing particles for swiss cheese is fascinating. I wonder if there is a market for having smaller holes to better pack cheese in large containers for mass production?
I think that the thought process was that if the holes disappeared it would no longer be the protected Swiss Cheese, and just be Swiss Style Cheese.
And we(big capitalism) does love a monoculture, so not really surprised on that front.
Is there a big market for naturally/spontaneously fermented wine in New Zealand? In California it’s a very small percentage of wine. Most grapes are treated with sulphur and commercial yeast is used. So all those wines are not going to be any different from a microbe perspective.
