More than 900 vineyards in UK mark new climate era in wine making

Plus. a new heat source from old coal mines

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Chapel Down, in Kent, is England’s leading wine producer. Photo: Chapel Down.

In my home region, a bubbling sign of climate change

When my son was en route to the U.K. this summer to work in a centuries-old pub between graduating college and a job in New York, I got an urgent text from an airport duty-free store.

“What do I get Moira?” he asked, referring to my stepmother, who had kindly offered to host him. I suggested a bottle of Champagne or some other sparkling wine. “How about this?” he then said, and mentioned a bubbly called Chapel Down. “It’s British,” he said. “Seems like an idea,” I responded.

And when I got to Alderney, the island where he was working, I got a thumbs-up from my stepmother about the wine. “It was jolly good,” she reported.

For which we can thank climate change.