The success of Australian wines is well documented. They have had a key role in turning us from a nation of beer drinkers into wine drinkers, pushing French wines off their perch, and taking the mystery out of what was in the bottle by helpfully putting the grape variety on the label and providing bemused consumers with informative labels.

The rise of Australian wines was happening at pretty much the time I reached the age at which it was legal for me to buy a bottle from the local wine merchant. It may be because my primary wine education had taken place in France and so I was traditionally rooted in the old world', but the honest truth is that the Australian wine revolution rather passed me by.

I had never been to Australia, I didn't - at the time - have a longing to visit, and, sadly, they just didn't capture my imagination. I think it's also true that way back then (almost 20 years ago now!) my first encounters with the wines from Oz weren't massively encouraging. I wasn't a huge fan of the super-ripe, sweet' styles of wines that my budget seemed to extend to.

Then, of course, things got a bit more exciting. The popularity of the reliable brands led to more boutique and individual wines being imported. Single-vineyard shiraz and cabernet sauvignons, along with elegant rieslings and sémillons, became increasingly common and I got more than a crush on sparkling shiraz.

One of the most significant factors in Australia's success has been the ever-reliable climate. Warm, dry summers help deliver healthy, regular crops that have been instrumental in building such powerful wine brands.

The temperatures are creeping up, though, and so are the problems.

The 13th Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference in Adelaide has just drawn to a close and the news on climate was not good.

Penny Whetton, an Australian climate change scientist, reported that Australia's weather was in keeping with the higher end of the modelled predictions.

Stuart McNab, Foster's director of wine production, said they had looked at ripening figures for the past 15 years "and we can show that there has been a slow and steady change: the maturity dates for Murray Valley Chardonnay have come forward by two to three weeks on average and it's the same story for Barossa Shiraz".

Greg Jones, from Southern Oregon University, has been studying climate change around the world since 1990 and has found that the average growing season temperature has risen by 1.3 degrees. He predicts that vineyards will march pole-ward as wine regions, as we know them today, become too hot for quality grapes.

A quick glance at a wine map of Australia makes the problem dramatically clear; the vineyards are strewn across the southern edges of the country and if predictions become reality, the vineyards could well be wiped out by rising sea levels.

It's hard not to be gloomy when faced with such a barrage of bad news. The University of Adelaide is working on a study - Australian Wine to 2030 - which is looking at how the country can adapt to climate change. It will make for fascinating reading.

One of the people working with the university is Brian Croser, one of Australia's leading winemakers. I have long admired his wines and my respect for him has grown tenfold since he announced that he plans to bottle all his Tapanappa wine with cork.

I have been wary about the do-no-wrong' support for screw-cap closures. Their trajectory from zero to hero has been accompanied by an almost frightening level of zealous enthusiasm.

For it to be moderated by a wise old bird like Croser is reassuring. He accepts that during comparative tastings of wines back to the 1970s, the condition of wines under screw cap was better by a ratio of two to one, but adds that the "more complex evolution" of wines under cork was unmistakable.

Perhaps there's hope for the humble cork. And if we manage to avoid the impact of cutting down a huge proportion of southern Europe's cork forests, perhaps we'll slow down the rising temperatures that threaten to leave us without any Australian wine to cork up at all.

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