(English) Top Recent Releases of North and South American Red Wines: A Selection

(English) by Ian D’Agata

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The New World: Christopher Colombus didn’t know all that would follow his world-changing discovery, but it is far to say that to compile all the events that took place and changed human society forever would make for a very long list indeed. And while production of glorious wines from Vitis vinifera in a place where none had existed before isn’t, in most likelihood, first and foremost in order of importance on anyone’s such list of events, it is still no small undertaking and achievement.

Fact is, North and South America make some truly exceptional wines nowadays, areas that started from rather humble beginnings and morphed along the way into real wine production powerhouses. And it’s not just one but rather many countries of the two American continents that have been doing so, with varying degrees of success, over the course of the last fifty years. With a little bit of knowledge and experience, it is easy to pick a superlative wine from the likes of Canada (Ontario, British Columbia, the Maritimes), the USA (California, New York State, Oregon, Washington and others), Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay come immediately to mind but there are others.

In this report, I will focus on red wines only, and on just a few selected countries based on recent tastings conducted in Shanghai. Overall, wine lovers and collectors can choose today between numerous richer Bordeaux and Rhone style red wines that have made the likes of California, Argentina and Chile famous, but at the same time there are also some outstanding cooler-climate wines made from the likes of Pinot Noir in places as diverse as Ontario in Canada and New York State in the USA. (I shall write about these latter wines in another upcoming North and South American top wines summary report devoted to cooler-climate wine production areas.)

For the most part, excitement about some of these New World red wines is wholly justified. Some are truly outstanding, the equivalent of any great red wine of the world you can think of. They are concentrated and deep, with the fleshy fruity exuberance that makes New World wines so unique, but that have also noteworthy amounts of elegance and refinement. These top wines are not, in other words, just about super jammy fruit, mouthcoating richness and palate weight, the most common New World wine stereotype (stereotypes, yes: but remember that stereotypes exist for a reason, if there was no reason to “type” something, then there would be no room or place for stereotypes, but in fact, there is). Even better, with many of these wine gems, their appellation, such as the American Viticultural Area (AVA) of Denominacion de Origen (DO) the grapes are sourced from, are clearly recognizable. That means that each has an identifiable origin of terroir, placing these great new World red wines on the same level as the great terroir-driven wines from Europe and the rest of the world.

But like everywhere else in the world of wine, you need to separate the wheat from the chaff.

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Ian D'Agata

赏源葡萄酒评论 Terroir Sense Wine Review主编
赏源风土研究院Terroir Sense Academy院长
国际风土协会副主席
知味 TasteSpirit 首席科学家

伊安·达加塔在葡萄酒领域耕耘超过30年,在葡萄酒品评、葡萄酒科研写作和葡萄酒教育等方面,都取得了杰出的成果,在葡萄酒行业和葡萄酒爱好者中,享有世界性声望。作为享誉国际的葡萄酒作家,他最近的两本著作《意大利原生葡萄品种》《意大利原生葡萄品种风土》被公认为意大利葡萄酒领域的权威著作;前者荣获2015年Louis Roederer国际葡萄酒作家大奖赛“年度最佳书籍奖”,他是唯一获此殊荣的意大利葡萄酒作家,并入选《洛杉矶时报》、《金融时报》、《纽约时报》评选的“年度葡萄酒书籍”榜单;后者被《纽约时报》和美国的Food & Wine杂志提名为年度最佳葡萄酒书籍。

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Ian D'Agata