With climate change threatening Canadian vineyards, is genetically engineered wine on the horizon?

The Great Lakes Climate Change Project is a joint initiative between CBC's Ontario stations to explore climate change from a provincial lens. Darius Mahdavi, a scientist with a degree in conservation biology and immunology and a minor in environmental biology from the University of Toronto, explains how issues related to climate change affect people and explores solutions, especially in smaller cities and communities.

Grape breeding researcher Matthew Clark says he often hears from people who believe one silver lining to climate change is it could be a major boost to cold-climate wine industries like Canada's.

However, Clark feels this is an overly optimistic thought.

Although winters have become milder on average, the truth is, "We're going to continue to have extreme weather events. We're going to continue to have extreme cold," said the associate professor at the University of Minnesota, where he leads the grape-breeding and enology program.

Clark's views are in line with other experts interviewed by CBC.

"If you look at the industry in Europe, each year in the last several years, they've been nailed with frost, after frost after frost, and that is partly because the vines are waking up too early," said Jason Londo, an associate professor of fruit crop physiology and climate adaptation at Cornell University based in Ithaca, N.Y.

The winters that climate change is bringing — ones that are milder on average, but still experience drops to extreme cold — could actually be worse for vineyards. 

But there are other reasons to be optimistic, in the form of new techniques and cold-hardy, disease-resistant grape varieties available now, and even more technologies on the horizon — if the industry and consumers are willing to adapt, say experts. 

Canada's wine regions stretch from B.C. to Nova Scotia, including three established appellations in Ontario. 

The two southernmost wine regions — Lake Erie North Shore and Niagara Peninsula — have long enjoyed relatively mild temperatures due to their latitude and proximity to the Great Lakes. 

This allows them to grow the traditional European grape varietals known as vinifera — from the species name Vitis vinifera — like Chardonnay and Riesling. 

"Lake Erie North Shore is our warmest appellation … our oldest wine-growing region. Those guys were winning awards on the international stage in the [1800 and 1900s]," says Beverly Crandon, a certified sommelier based in Toronto. 

European varieties like these can be particular and would not survive in most Canadian climates. 

When it comes to surviving a changing climate, vinifera varieties have limited options. Since we plant them clonally to preserve the variety, they don't have a chance to adapt or evolve.