From Saturday’s New York Times:

DORKING, England — For more than a decade, Matthieu Elzinga ran his own vineyard in the western Loire Valley of France. But this year, just as he was gaining an international reputation for his dry and crisp Muscadets, Mr. Elzinga sold the vineyard and moved to an emerging wine region: the south of England.
A successful French winemaker’s leap to Britain may sound contrarian — traitorous even. But it may be no more striking than the fact that English sparkling wines have recently been beating Champagnes at international competitions. Or that the British wine industry has been growing at double-digit rates for a decade and doubling in size over the last 30 years.
More obvious, though, may be the meteorological motive that is at least partly behind Mr. Elzinga’s move. By the middle of this century, Britain could become one of the world’s big wine producers, as global warming moves the limits of viticulture ever farther north.
“The wine industry in Europe will certainly change to follow the climate changes,” said Mr. Elzinga, who is now chief winemaker at Denbies Wine Estate, one of Britain’s largest vineyards. “You can’t beat the climate, so you have to follow it.”
Any climate change that benefits the British wine industry is still highly speculative and would not compensate for the broader environmental hazards that many scientists say would accompany continued global warming. And more parochially, the country’s vintners still have many obstacles to overcome, including a cumbersome taxation system and the lingering stereotype that in the land of ales and stouts, English wine simply cannot be taken seriously.
But there is no question that in recent years, British winemaking has benefited from warmer, if more erratic, weather. Britain’s climate is warming faster than the global average, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international group. In Sussex, in southeast England, the average temperature in 2013 is 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) warmer than it was for most of the second part of the last century.
According to scientific projections, Britain can expect wetter winters, drier summers and less snow and frost. In this way Britain is joining a list of prospective new wine countries that include China, Russia and even the Scandinavian states.
“Global warming is definitely benefiting the U.K. wine industry,” said Chris Foss, who oversees the wine department at Plumpton College. “My family is from Bordeaux, but I’ve been living in England for 45 years now. The change over time is just amazing. The industry has potential to expand at least five times, if not 10.”

The rest here.