A leading European winemaker warned that because climate change could make traditional growing areas too dry and hot, it may have to abandon its ancestral land in Catalonia within 30 years.

Familia Torres has installed irrigation in vineyards in Spain and California and planted vines on higher elevations as it tries to adapt to more extreme conditions.

"Irrigation is the future. We don't rely on the weather," said its 83-year-old president Miguel Torres. "I don't know how long we can stay here to make good wine, maybe 20 or 30 years, I don't know. Climate change is changing everything."

The family business has been making wine in Catalonia since 1870, but Torres said: "For 30 to 50 years, maybe we have to stop perfume here.

"Tourists are very important to Catalonia, we are very close to Barcelona. This area may be an activity for tourists, but perfume, I don't think it's here."

The group invests 11% of its profits annually to combat and adapt to the climate crisis, but instead has to move at least some of its vineyards to the West because it's cooler and we have to drink water".

Familia Torres has over 1,000 hectares of vineyards in Catalonia, mainly in the Penedès region and in other parts of Spain, Chile and California.

Now it is expanding to higher altitudes, at 950 meters Catalan former pie, producing grapes in tremp and buying the plot in Benabarre, in Benabarre, in the Aragonese Pyrenees, at 1,100 meters, where it is still too cold to grow vines. It also uses various techniques to reduce or reuse water growth and processing practices.

This is after the average temperature of a family has risen by 1C over the past 40 years. This change leads to harvesting 10 days earlier than decades ago, while families use various techniques to slow the maturity of grapes to protect the right quality of winemaking.

Torres' comments are after a few tough years of European vineyards. He said production in some areas of winemakers (“the worst year I’ve ever seen”) fell by 50% in 2023 — a period of extreme calories and drought that still fell at historical average last year.

So far this year has been better – in winter and spring rains and a wider range of irrigation uses – but Torres said he fears the mold threat posed by damper conditions.

“In the future, if we want to have more continuity in our harvest, we have to stop warming,” he said. “Warming is killing trade.”

The additional costs of irrigation are falling into profits in a competitive market, and in recent years, the potential threat of U.S. import tariffs are other duties imposed on wine in recent years, as well as new packaging taxes, which are especially high for glass bottles and jars.

Torres said exports to the UK fell by as much as 10%, absorbing some of the increase in costs further hurting profits.

"We don't have profits from exporting to the UK, and that's the reality. Thousands of Brits come to Spain on holidays and learn about the brand. We have to keep it alive in the UK."

Torres is considering bottling some of its cheaper wines in the UK to reduce costs - because tanker imports are less expensive.

"At least next year, we should have imported it in the UK." "British consumers are paying more for wine and there is no other possibility (import). There is very little production in the UK."