Last week, the Australian arm of American banking firm Morgan Stanley published a report predicting a future wine shortage, based on current consumption estimates outpacing the estimated level of production. Headlines around the world warned their readers of impending hikes in wine prices as demand outstrips supply. This has since been shown to likely be an over-exaggeration with the report largely de-constructed and widely criticised across the internet. However, what interested me was how the different news outlets reported the story, specifically what was reported as the cause for the "deficit".
Unfortunately I was unable to find the original Morgan Stanley article, but based on the information reported in numerous sources, plus drawing together direct quotes, it became apparent that the original article gave three reasons for the shortfall in wine stocks: firstly, increasing consumption, secondly a decrease in the number of wine vines producing grapes, and thirdly poor weather conditions in 2012 which affected the harvest. Although all news articles I read stated the first point, the latter two points were dealt with differently depending upon the writer.
Some source stayed true to the original report, citing decreased vineyard size ("vine pull") and poor weather in 2012 as the causes (BBC News, Huffington Post, Independent, Metro). The BBC also stated a decrease in production, which could be interpreted in many ways, a poor crop and decrease in vineyard size being just two possible options. Others went a step further, blaming the global economic downturn for the decrease in vineyards, as well as the poor weather across Europe (The Telegraph). Some media outlets chose to not list all the possible causes in their report - The Daily Mail, The Daily Star and Yahoo News all neglected to mention decreasing vineyard size, instead opting for poor weather and although the Daily Mail and Yahoo News did list declining production and production capacity, respectively, as causes, which may include vine pull, but it is not explicitly stated. CNN opted to just mention the poor weather, whilst Fox News took the opposite approach by solely mentioning the decrease in land being used to grow grapes. CNBC purely cited "poor harvests", under the headline "Is China causing a global wine shortage?".
Not every news outlet covered the story, and some only covered it in passing (such as the Daily Express where the topic was covered in a sentence within a comment piece which also listed forth coming problems in the supply of almonds, goats' cheese, olives, and olive oil), but every media outlet which had a piece on this topic mentioned the growing demand for wine in countries such as the US and China, and in some cases the mention of other causes, such as weather and vineyard space, were almost an after thought.
When I first saw the headlines proclaiming the impending doom for wine-lovers worldwide I was reminded about the research within my university which was commissioned by a well-known supermarket chain in the UK. This particular supermarket is taking the idea of climate change extremely seriously and has commissioned research into where the ideal location for vineyards will be in 20 years time, because it takes around 10 years for a vineyard to fully establish. According to predictive climate models, places such as Spain and Italy will gradually become less ideal for grape growing. The poor harvest in 2012 was caused by poor weather that year, and the Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin (OIV) is saying that production in 2013 is going to increase substantially this year, thus implying the good weather has returned. But how many years of "poor weather" do we need before we conclude that the climate has altered and where it was always good for grapes, it is no longer is the case? When the Vikings first colonised Greenland, they did so because they could grow crops - it was during the Medieval Warm Period. When the climate subsequently cooled, the settlements died out, and now the majority of the island is covered by an ice cap.
I guess I was not entirely surprised by the differing coverage of the same report between news outlets - if I had thought they would all say the same thing, I wouldn't have looked at a selection. This analysis is of just one story by just one reporter at each institution, and cannot be used as a true indicator of the news outlet as a whole. However it is always worth bearing in mind the leanings of the news agency you use to get your information about the world from. Are you sure that you aren't reading a particular paper just because it will further affirm your beliefs about the world? It may be worth challenging yourself by reading news from other sources from time to time, just to see what you may be having filtered out for you, and if you feel very strongly about a particular article, it may be worth tracking down the original source if it is a report, paper or press release, just to check what was really said, or what has really been discovered.
All articles accessed on 6th November 2013. Links correct at time of posting.
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