From terroir to turmoil: business model innovation for climate adaptation in French wineries

Abstract

This study investigates how wineries are adapting to climate challenges by not only modifying vineyard practices but also transforming their overall organization, knowledge, and value creation strategies (Jolink & Niesten, 2026). Climate change already affects viticulture worldwide through higher temperatures, reduced rainfall, droughts, heat stress, and more frequent events like wildfires and floods (van Leeuwen et al., 2024). These factors impact grapevine growth, ripening schedules, harvest dates, and water management. Additionally, the diverse terrain of many vineyards results in unique local conditions at each site. As a result, wineries’ adaptation efforts now depend heavily on understanding specific climate risks and developing thoughtful, strategic responses.

While much of the wine sector’s adaptation focuses on technical measures in the vineyard, such as water-saving practices, UV-spray protection, and canopy management to reduce fruit exposure, this presentation shifts the focus to the winery’s business model and absorptive capacity. The authors argue that climate adaptation requires reconfiguring how wineries create and capture value: changing which activities are performed, how they are connected, and whether they are done internally or through external partnerships. In this view, adaptation can include new sourcing strategies, revised partnership structures, or broader reorganizations of production and decision-making processes. Wineries more severely impacted by climate change are expected to make more significant changes like these as a form of reactive adaptation (Hicks-Weber & Unter, 2024).

Absorptive capacity is defined here as the winery’s ability to acquire, interpret, transform, and use external knowledge (Dzhengiz & Niesten, 2020). This is especially important in viticulture, where adaptation increasingly relies on combining practical vineyard knowledge with weather forecasts, climate data, and information from scientists, suppliers, associations, competitors, and other stakeholders. The study suggests that absorptive capacity enhances the link between climate exposure and business model innovation (Amit & Zott, 2012) by helping wineries turn climate intelligence into actionable organizational changes.

Empirically, the project combines a survey of French winemakers on their climate change perceptions and business model changes with parcel-linked geospatial and meteorological datasets. Using temperature and precipitation data, we calculate changes in Huglin and Hydrothermal Indices over a 30-year period (see Figures 1 and 2). The preliminary results show that wineries under increased climatic pressure will assimilate more climate data and report more significant business model adjustments.

References

Amit, R., Zott, C. (2012). Creating value through business model innovation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 53(3), 41-49.

Dzhengiz, T., Niesten, E. (2020). Competences for environmental sustainability: A systematic review on the impact of absorptive capacity and capabilities. Journal of Business Ethics, 162(4), 881-906.

Hicks-Webster, C., Unter, K. (2024). Wineries earn more per bottle when they adapt to climate change. https://nbs.net/wineries-earn-more-per-bottle-when-they-adapt-to-climate-change/

Jolink, A., Niesten, E. (2026). The wrath of grapes–a sustainability case on the unsustainable impact of climate change on Salcheto winery. The CASE Journal, 1-13.

van Leeuwen, C., Sgubin, G., Bois, B., Ollat, N., Swingedouw, D., Zito, S., & Gambetta, G. A. (2024). Climate change impacts and adaptations of wine production. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 5(4), 258-275.