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The Geography of Wine - Part 2

© Alan Boehmer

The Geography of Wine
SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

Last week's article pointed out the fact that more than 90% of the northern hemisphere's commercial viticultural areas lie between 35° and 45° north latitude, forming a 700 mile wide swath around the earth. Within its boundaries lie the vineyards of California, Oregon, Washington, Virginia, and New York State, as well as those of Spain, France, Italy, and the Middle East. We noted that, but for cultural, climatic and geophysical restraints, Iran, Pakistan, China, and Japan might be great wine producing regions, as well.

The southern hemisphere mirrors the condition of the northern, except that the optimal latitudes for viticulture - 35° to 45° - pass mostly through open ocean. There are, however, three important viticultural regions that lie within the viticultural band: Chile/Argentina, South Africa, and South Australia/New Zealand.

Second in a Series of Two Articles

Do you know the largest wine producing country in the world? It's not France, Italy, or Spain. Not the U.S. It's Argentina! Americans are often unaware that the Mendoza province of Argentina, famous for voluminous quantities of red wine, mostly from the Malbec varietal, lies directly across the Andes from Santiago, center of the wine industry in Chile. Same latitude. Similar growing conditions. While the wines of these regions are just beginning to gain a foothold in the competitive U.S. markets, they are flooding Asian markets. Japan, with no wine industry, finds the Caliterra (Mondavi) line from Chile very much to its liking; China, also. Why truly world class wine has yet to be made in Chile or Argentina is probably due to the long process of finding optimum sites for individual varietals. It took the California wine industry more than a half century to figure out what should be grown where. Whoever would have guessed, even a decade ago, that the most expensive Pinot Noir fruit in the State would come from San Luis Obispo? -not Carneros, Sonoma County, or even the Russian River. Surely the Chilean wine industry will find the next decade a time of continual retrenching, as they scramble to find those optimal partnerships of soil, climate and grape varietal. The winemaking expertise is already in place.

Our 10 degree swath continues eastward across the Atlantic Ocean to Africa, where only the very tip of the continent is included. Expecting new wine industries to develop in Zaire? Botswana? Zimbabwe? Forget it. Even the northern half of the country of South Africa is beyond the limits. Of course, there may be some "microclimates" lurking in unexpected places.

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