Harpers Wine & Spirit Trade News

Tasting Climate Change, Montreal: Charting the plethora of potential impacts

Published: 20 April, 2026

It would be very sad if, at the end of these days, the focus was on politics and not climate change.” So said Michelle Bouffard, founder of Tasting Climate Change, which took place in a crisp and wintery Montreal earlier this year, where a strong Canadian and US contingency was joined by many international visitors. Spread over three days, one of the key takeaways from the many experts speaking was that climate change and its associated environmental impact is the story that trumps all. Yet there is still a sense that we as an industry are sleepwalking into what could be a radically altered near future.

The climate communication conundrum

Published: 04 February, 2026

Rather like climate change and sustainability themselves, the recent fifth edition of Tasting Climate Change in Montreal was complex, dense with information, covering so much ground, from so many angles, that it was difficult to summarise into one simple thread. One prominent panellist – a journalist – even quipped “I’m having a heart attack just thinking about how I write all of this up”, given the viticultural, winemaking, packaging, distribution, retailing and post-consumption issues that were explored. Harpers will be covering some of those topics in this spring’s Sustainability Report, but as a taster (and mindful of that comment), one important aspect that was raised was that of consumer communication, from both trade and press.