Research Article Climate Change, Grape Phenology, and Frost Risk in Southeast England C. Llanaj and G. McGregor epartment of Geography, urham University, Stockton Road, urham H1 3LE, UK Correspondence should be addressed to G. McGregor; glenn.mcgregor@durham.ac.uk Received 10 September 2021; Accepted 1 July 2022; Published 8 December 2022 Academic Editor: Gregory M. Dunn Copyright © 2022 C. Llanaj and G. McGregor. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background and Aims. Te cultivation of grapevines in England is expected to beneft under climate change. Yet assessments of future wine climates remain undeveloped. Accordingly, this study assesses how climate change might modify frost risk for Chardonnay in the Southeast England viticulture region. Methods and Results. Cold•bias•corrected climate projections from the UKCP18 Regional (12km) perturbed parameter ensemble (PPE) climate model under RCP8.5 are applied with phenological models to determine how frost risk and the timing of key grapevine phenophases might alter under climate change. Not• withstanding the uncertainties associated with projections of key viticulture•related bioclimate variables, the last spring frost was found to advance at a greater rate than budburst, indicating a general decrease in frost risk. Conclusions. Although projections point to an improving climate for viticulture across Southeast England, frost will remain a risk for viticulture, albeit at a reduced level compared to the present. Furthermore, the strong cold•bias found for temperature simulations used in this study needs to be given careful consideration when using the UKCP18 projections for viticulture impact assessments of climate change. Signifcance oftheStudy. Tis study highlights the present sensitivity of viticulture to climate variability and the inherent uncertainty associated with making future projections of wine climate under climate change. 1. Introduction As a perennial crop, grapevines (Vitisvinifera) are particularly sensitive to short•term variability and long•term changes in climate [1]. Exposed to fuctuating weather conditions both within and between years, production of high•quality wines is associated with low frost damage at budburst, fowering during warm springs, and an optimal maturation period [2–5]. Previously, British wine production has been con• strained by insufcient heat accumulation during the growing season, leading to a loss of bud fertility [6]. However, pro• jected increases of average growing season temperature under future climate scenarios are expected to beneft the cultivation of grapevines in cool climate regions, thus presenting the opportunity for growth in the United Kingdom (UK) wine production sector [7–9]. Already, the hectarage planted in the UK has quadrupled since 2000, with wine producers expecting to accelerate investment in vineyard capacity within the current decade [10, 11]. Stakeholders of sparkling wine or “British bubbly” have generally reported the impacts of climate change to be positive with rising average maximum temperature desig• nated a key external driver of industry growth [3, 10]. Yet, wine production in the UK is complicated by short•term climate variations, resulting in large fuctuations in vintage• to•vintage harvest quality [12]. Indeed, the potential for damage to grapevines from late spring frosts at the post• budburst cold•sensitive stages of shoot development con• tinues to be of foremost concern to stakeholders [3, 13]. Adverse weather•related falls in wine production highlight the inherent volatility of the industry [10, 12, 14, 15]. In the wider context of learning to live with the un• certainty of climate change and the development of climate resilience, viticulture is an agricultural sector that will greatly beneft from the assessment of future climate risks to inform decisions on vineyard location, cultivar selection, and crop management [12]. Yet, for areas of the UK where vineyards are currently established, a combination of the long life time Hindawi Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research Volume 2022, Article ID 9835317, 18 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/9835317