Spanish winemakers are reviving historic late-ripening and heat-tolerant grape varieties to save their EUR 5 bn wine industry from climate threats, The Guardian reports. The Mediterranean country experienced its hottest year since record-keeping began in 2022 and has experienced four of its hottest years on record since 2015.

How does this affect the wines? Droughts and rising temperatures have caused grapes to ripen more quickly, leading farmers to harvest earlier and quicker in a bid to protect the careful balance between sugars and acidity. This has led researchers to look to the past in search of more heat-resistant grape varieties that fell out of popularity over time, with over a dozen grape types found boosting the number of registered varieties by 50% in the past two decades.

And it’s not the first time the past spells our future: British scientists cross-bred older varieties of wheat with modern ones to engineer more resilient and nutritious wheat varieties to survive in hot and dry climates, in anticipation of a 1°C rise in temperatures causing a 6.4% drop in the amount of wheat grown around the world.