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USA
Wine States of USA: Simply click on any
green-shaded area of the map to go to a specific map for that
State.
Overview
In
most people's perception the term 'North American wine' is interchangeable with
'Californian wine', so it may come as a surprise for some to find out that wine
is made in as many as 40 US states, and that as of 1999, 19 states had more
than 10 wineries each. California leads the pack by some distance, with around
800 000 acres under vine and more than a thousand wineries, followed by
Washington state (50 000 and 125), New York state (30 000 and 136) and Oregon
(9000 and 116). At the top end, North American wines can compete with the
finest that Europe can produce in quality terms, even though the styles may be
somewhat different. They are not great bargains though: top US wines also match
the European classics for price (a lot of the producers have such expensive
lifestyles to maintain, after all). However, there is a huge gulf in quality
between the fine wines and the enormous quantities of inexpensive branded or
jug wines produced in the hot central valley of California, which are pretty
ropy. Outside California, the Pacific Northwest states of Oregon and Washington
have been making strides with Pinot Noir, and to a lesser extent Merlot, and
the Finger Lakes region of New York state does well with Riesling. There's been
an embryonic attempt to devise an American appellation system, administered by
the BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which sounds like a rather
dangerous combination), in which individual regions are identified as AVAs
(American Viticultural Area). This has met with mixed results, many of the AVAs
having more to do with political lobbying and vested interests than the grape
growing characteristics of each region.
California
It's boom time for California wine:
between 1980 and 1999, the number of wineries in this state more than doubled
(from 508 to 1056). It is easy to forget that as recently as 1933, Prohibition
was still in place in the USA. Since then, California has made tremendous
strides and was the first of the New World wine regions to compete with the
classic French regions both in terms of quality, and more recently price. Most
wines are labelled according to the variety, of which Cabernet Sauvignon,
Zinfandel (California's 'own' grape variety) and Merlot are the main red
grapes, and Chardonnay is the key white. Of the various wine regions (now more
than 20), Napa and Sonoma lead the quality stakes, but are being challenged by
upcoming regions such as the Santa Cruz Mountains and Santa Ynez Valley. In
contrast, the hot Central Valley produces enormous volumes of dull jug wine.
Because of the strong domestic demand and the fact that American wine geeks are
usually quite wealthy, the best Californian wines are hard to obtain and
inevitably expensive. In fact, the leading Californian Cabernets now cost more
than first growth Bordeaux, and the top Chardonnays match the prices of their
counterparts in Burgundy. From the consumer's point of view, this is
unfortunate, because the quality is often superb.
Carneros
Small Californian wine region that
overlaps with the southern end of the Napa and Sonoma Valleys, specializing in
Pinot Noir and to a lesser extent Chardonnay. It's subject to the same sea fogs
as San Francisco, which helps keep the summer temperatures down -- a good thing
when you are trying to make more complex wines.
Central Valley
A huge vineyard area running
almost the entire length of California. Grapes are grown here on an industrial
scale: these immense, hot, irrigated, high-yielding vineyards make fairly
crappy jug wines that account for some three-quarters of the state's
production. Wine from the Central Valley is treated strictly as a commodity.
Mendocino
This large wine region
north of San Francisco is the most northerly in California. Within Mendocino
county the climate varies substantially from hot to relatively cool. Land
prices here are substantially lower than in Napa and Sonoma (by as much as a
factor of five), which means the wines are often better value.
Moneterey
Cooler-climate Californian wine
region, part of the North-Central Coast area, and first developed in the 1960s.
Most vineyards are found in the fertile Salinas Valley. Red wines from this
region traditionally have had an unpleasant, vegetal aroma, but viticulture has
recently been improving, and Chardonnay in particular has been a success.
Napa
The heart of California's
wine industry. Wine is big business here. In the valley, celebrity wine
personalities run palatial wineries and live Hollywood lifestyles. No wonder
the wines cost so much. Cabernet Sauvignon is the key grape, and in the right
hands produces dense, long-lived wines of stunning quality. Like many other
Californian regions, Napa has a range of climatic influences and soil types,
and in general the wines from the hillside vineyards surpass those from the
valley floor. Napa's location, just a short drive over the bay from San
Francisco, ensures there's a constant stream of tourist traffic.
New York State
The leading wine producing state
in the eastern USA, although a lot of this wine is still made from native
American grapes (crappy-tasting Vitis labrusca rather than the classic European
Vitis vinifera varieties). Fortunately, there is a move away from these native
varieties towards the more challenging-to-grow but infinitely better-tasting
European ones: whites such as Chardonnay and Riesling seem to do best. The
climate is always a problem here: winters are bitterly cold and summers are
hot, humid and a little too brief. The Finger Lakes and Long Island regions
lead the field.
Oregon
Pacific
Northwest state just above California, whose 120 or so (mostly small-scale)
wineries make small quantities of mostly high-end wines. The speciality here is
the fickle Pinot Noir grape, which generally finds California a bit too hot for
its liking and prefers the cooler climate of Oregon. For white wines, Pinot
Gris and Chardonnay also do well here.
Santa Barbara County
Just two hours' drive
north from Los Angeles, this is one of California's most interesting and
promising wine areas. Although the climate here is quite hot, the ocean breezes
and sea fogs cool things down enough to permit the production of high quality
wines: in particular, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Syrah excel. The two main
vineyard regions are the Santa Maria and Santa Ynez valleys.
Sonoma
Sonoma may live in the shadow of its
illustrious neighbour, Napa, but it is undoubtedly one of California's finest
wine regions. Running exactly parallel to the Napa valley, north of San
Francisco, Sonoma valley has a range of climatic influences and soil types; if
anything, it's a little warmer than Napa, making wines that are just a bit
riper-flavoured and softer. Its proximity to San Francisco ensures that there's
plenty of tourist traffic, and land prices are stratospheric.
Washington
North American state sandwiched
between Oregon and the Canadian border in the Pacific Northwest, and second
only to California in terms of area under vine. The majority of the wineries
are in the south-west part of the state, in the Yakima and Columbia valleys.
Washington is on the up, with new vineyards being planted all the time, and a
reputation developing for classy, high quality reds from Merlot and Cabernet,
and whites from Chardonnay, Semillon and Riesling. |
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