Advances in technology—trains, cars, jets—have shrunk our world in the span of a lifetime; yet explorers still find new species of life: not of bugs, but of good sized mammals in the jungles of southeast Asia and elsewhere. Astronomers discover new planets, oceanographers marvel at the newly exposed topography of the sea floor and winemakers plant vineyards in Sweden. Don’t expect “Fjord Blanc” and “Laplander Rouge” anytime soon; but the wine world, too, is showing off its new clothes.
Grapes can’t be planted just anywhere: they need sustinence from the soil or a similar template, a minimum of heat and sunlight as well as a dormancy period if they are going to survive or at least make decent wine for more than a few years. This is why the polar icecaps have long been ruled out by grapegrowers as have those areas deemed too hot or lush, areas where the vines never get a chance to rest as they are always “awake” and growing. So you would think that by now, in the 7,000 or so year history of our cultivating grapes, we would have covered the map. But for political and/or economic reasons and the fact that humans are just so curious, vineyards keep on sprouting up everywhere.
Like cigars with your wine? What would be a more natural spot for a vineyard than Cuba? American experts flying in to advise Cubanos on Cabernet? As Donnie Brasco would say: fuhgedabowdit. Rather, Italians with the firm of Fantinel have entered into the picture. With vineyards near San Cristobal, and a new winery in the refurbished Castello del Morro, they are now marketing Chardonnay, Cabernet and Tempranillo to the growing tourist trade.
When the Fair Trade Agreement was passed, Canadians were forced to accept cheaper California wines onto their market effectively body-slamming its own wine industry. They reacted not only by planting newer, more modern-market grape varieties (including Zinfandel and Syrah!) but by expanding vineyard areas on both ends of the country.
Communist policies over several generations laid waste to the once fine-wine regions not only of the former USSR but of several eastern European countries as well. Even the man who effectively brought down the Empire—Mikhael Gorbachev—ordered thousands of acres of Russian and Ukrainian vineyards ripped out in a futile fight against alcoholism. Today, these and other areas in the former Soviet bloc are, with the help of western experts, re-awakening (Chateau Disnoko and the Peters’ Hill brand from the Bataapati Estate from Hungary and the Chateau Dalina brand from Bulgaria are examples on this market). The new German wine maps, for instance, reflect the former East German areas of Saale-Unstrut and Sachsen, vineyard regions once close to disappearing but now slowly recovering.
China, once a vinous backwater, has rushed to center stage in the wine world. With the help of primarily French advisers, this country’s vineyard acreage and wine production has increased tremendously. In the last 10 years alone, China has added 100,000 new acres, much of that for the production of wine. They currently turn out 100 million gallons of wine a year.
“New” wine regions of France? Phylloxera, the vine-eating bug that nearly destroyed Europe’s vineyards in the middle of the last century, has been controlled. But it affected hundreds of thousands of acres of vines that that were either abandoned or up-rooted and planted to other crops. Look at a map of Burgundy. Note that there is an 80 mile gap between the sub-regions of Chablis and the Côte d’Or. Much of this land—estimates put it as high as 100,000 acres--was once planted to grapes that were devastated by phylloxera. As recently as 1960, Chablis looked like it would disappear as a fine wine entity. Today, while it hasn’t recovered all that territory (France has laws agin it), it is a going concern.
Similarly, look at the Rhone Valley. As prices for the more expensive Rhone and other French wines put them out of the reach of most consumers, winegrowers have dramatically increased plantings elsewhere. The Cotes de Luberon, the Cotes de Ventoux and Coteaux du Tricastin appellations on the Rhone’s flanks have 6,000 new acres in the last decade alone. Even in the heart of the Rhone Valley, abutting Chateauneuf-du-Pape, farmers who had once grown beets ripped them up and are now producing high quality wines under the Gigondas appellation.
Italy, too, is experiencing new vineyards. Just south of Arezzo and outside the Chianti zone, wine companies like Antinori and Avignonesi are planting new vineyards. Many of these vineyards are being devoted to Merlot, Cabernet, Syrah and Chardonnay—the “foreign” varieties. And soon Americans will find them on our shelves under the Denominazione “Cortona”. Along the western coast, the “Bolgheri” denominazione has enlarged after the successes of Sassicaia and Ornellaia.
In our hemisphere, in South America, vineyards have been flourishing for centuries. But even now, new areas are being planted or played with. Casablanca, for instance, is a new zone just west of Santiago. In fact, you will just start noticing that appellation on wines from Chile (Errazuriz, Casa Lapostolle), especially for Chardonnays which seem to be favored by the zone.
There’s not too much undiscovered land in America: we now have over a million acres under vine. But the doggedness of a few and the economic climate have combined to expand vineyards all over the country. Nearby, look at the Traverse City area of Michigan (Madonna’s father looked and stayed and now owns Ciccone Vineyards) or the dozen or so new wineries opened up in the state of Illinois in the last 5 years.
Further afield, at one of the highest spots on the continent for vines, Riesling is growing at the 6,000 feet level in the Rockies of Colorado.
Even in Napa and Sonoma, vineyards are popping up all over. Been a couple of years since you drove from San Francisco up through southern Napa county? American Canyon, once a prairie infested by strip-malls is now prime vineyard land. And gutsy guys like David Hirsch have perched their vineyards on a Sonoma county mountain ridge overlooking the Pacific: and growing great Pinot.
Oh, Sweden. According to Swedish food and wine writer, Michel Jamais, there are now 3 vineyards in his country. Two of them are on an island called Gotland in the Baltic Sea. “The climate is quite sunny, thought it’s cold in wintertime; but..(the sea’s moderating effect)…makes it possible to grow grapes”. Umm, Jamais says there is also a vineyard in Norway “producing a quite fine and very expensive (about $100) wine from Merlot grapes.”…….Copyright © Patrick W Fegan
