Europe Drinks Less Past 32°C. What That Means for Wine.

There’s a threshold, and nobody in the wine trade talks about it. Extreme heat and alcohol sales have an inverse relationship past a certain point: sales climb with the temperature, right up until they don’t.

Reuters reported this week that researchers from the University of California, ETH Zurich, and North Carolina State University found the turning point sits at roughly 32°C. Push past that, and the boost from hot weather shrinks. Extreme heat sends people indoors, not to the terrace.

Extreme heat and alcohol sales: the 32°C ceiling

Every drinks brand runs on the same old assumption: heat means beer, rosé, Aperol Spritz. That holds true up to a point. Past it, people choose air conditioning over sunshine. Carlsberg’s global director of public affairs, Kristian Henningsen, told Reuters there’s an important difference between warm weather and extreme heat. Real heat keeps people home, away from the terrace where the summer revenue usually comes from.

Carlsberg’s response: more choice. Low- and no-alcohol beer, soft drinks alongside the core range. A portfolio shift, not a strategy pivot. Other major beer and spirits makers either declined to comment to Reuters or didn’t respond at all when asked how more extreme weather affects their business. That silence says something on its own.

Why this isn’t just a beer story

Reuters frames the piece around “drinks makers” broadly, but every quote in it comes from beer. Carlsberg. Anheuser-Busch InBev, which has previously blamed disappointing summer earnings on weather too cold or too wet. No wine producer, no importer, no wine-specific figure anywhere in the source.

That’s my first critical read here: the 32°C threshold is an average across alcohol as a category. A chilled rosé at a shaded table might behave differently than a lager in direct sun, but nobody has measured that split. Or at least nobody’s sharing it. Extending this to wine specifically is my own inference, not a number from the article.

Second critical point: Euromonitor’s Spiros Malandrakis, global insights manager for alcoholic drinks, says in the same piece that heat can push up production costs because agriculture and the broader economy take a hit. Sounds plausible for wine specifically: heat stress on the vine, earlier harvests, more irrigation. But the Reuters piece gives no concrete figure attached to that claim. No percentage, no cost-per-hectoliter. It stays an assumption without a number behind it, and I’d want that specificity before treating it as fact.

The counter-move: some people drink more

Malandrakis adds a third layer that complicates things further: some people will drink more in a world that “feels like it’s literally on fire.” A recognisable human response. But again, no study, no percentage. A quote, not data. I’m filing it as a plausible hypothesis, not established behaviour.

Which is my third critical point on the whole piece: it moves freely between hard research data (the 32°C turning point) and an analyst’s loose speculation (drinking more out of dread), giving both equal weight on the page. That distinction matters for anyone writing about it afterward.

What this means for the terrace

Continental Europe was already deep into a heatwave by mid-June, with scientists estimating that at least 100 million people were facing temperatures above 35°C. British media reported that France restricted alcohol consumption in some areas during that heatwave, though the exact scope of the measure isn’t well documented. A different mechanism than consumer preference, but the same effect on sales: fewer glasses going out the door.

A hotter, longer summer doesn’t automatically mean more rosé moving off the shelf. If people stay inside with the curtains drawn, the bottle doesn’t sell itself. What I do think benefits: air-conditioned wine bars and restaurants, not the terrace but the cool room behind it. I haven’t seen that measured anywhere. My own anecdotal read, worth watching this summer.

Until someone publishes numbers that separate wine from beer, this stays an assumption with a solid study behind it, not a rule. For now I’m keeping the rosé in the ice bucket. But I’ll be reading wine importers’ year-end figures this autumn with real interest. Those will show whether this turning point holds for the bottle, not just the glass.

Sources

• Primary source: Extreme heat could change the mix for European drinks makers, Reuters, July 3, 2026
• Additional: research on the roughly 32°C turning point, conducted by the University of California, ETH Zurich, and North Carolina State University, as cited in the Reuters article above
• Additional: 100 million people above 35°C, Kuwait Times and Netherlands temperature forecast, mid-June