How scientists are trying to save America’s smoke-damaged wine industry

In California wine country, there’s a waiting list arguably more prized than the three Michelin-starred French Laundry. It exists for a handful of laboratories capable of testing wineries’ smoke-damaged grapes in the wake of wildfires.

This damage, called taint, is a recurring problem for winemakers in the American west, where wildfires are now ripping across the landscape at an unprecedented rate.

Climate change is driving a confluence of problems for the $340bn (£270bn) global wine industry. Prolonged heatwaves and multi-year droughts, interspersed with erratic storms and record-setting rainfall, have upended the stability of agricultural seasons. And then, there are events which erupt with even less warning: wildfires.