By Melody Schrieber and Manon Verchot
As revelers around the world ring in the new year with glasses of champagne tonight, they’re probably not toasting to the sustainable agricultural methods that went into some of the bottles.
But for some vineyards in France – where earlier this month nearly 200 nations signed a landmark deal to limit climate change – employing green practices in their winemaking is as important as protecting the use of the term “champagne”, which applies only to the bubbly produced in a region of France that bears the same name.
Climate change is prompting some farmers in this celebrated region to switch to more eco-friendly techniques which, they hope, will also enable their champagne to command higher prices from consumers who care about whether what they are drinking is sustainably produced.
