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Globalization of wine


Globalization of vine is the expansion of wine varietals and brands across nations and to other continents, especially in modern times as a result of the advent of air travel and access to wine information via the internet.

Wine has been traded internationally since ancient times. In the wake of the amphoras came professional winemakers, winemaking techniques, and cuttings of grapevines. Many grapes that are considered 'traditional' in Western Europe were in fact brought by ancient trade routes from the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea region. The Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Armenians all brought grapes to new homes.

There was a second wave of migration to the New World, under the European empires of the 16th–19th centuries – by the early 18th century South Africa was exporting Constantia to Europe, made with muscat grapes that originated in Egypt. Subsequent immigrants have brought their native wines and grapes wherever they have gone – the Italian influence on Argentine and Californian winemaking is particularly noteworthy. Wines from Portugal and Madeira were fortified to survive journeys across the world, and left their mark on wines in the colonies that aped their style and were named after them.

The phylloxera epidemic of the late 19th century also had a big influence, destroying traditional field blends of indigenous grapes in vineyards, which were often replaced by monocultures of fashionable grapes such as the Bordeaux varieties – grafted, of course, onto rootstocks from North America. Vignerons faced a stark choice, either adopt the new techniques, or choose another profession. Phylloxera was the stimulus for the development of a new infrastructure of government breeding programmes and exchange of plant material and techniques.

After the Second World War, a number of countries developed bland wines for the export market, with an emphasis on uniformity and branding, such as Mateus Rose and Blue Nun. These were welcomed by a mass market – and the multiple retailers who served them – and those same factors have helped similar brands to gain more power, although changes in fashion mean that the names have changed. The modern equivalents come from industrial irrigated vineyards in the New World, in regions such as Murray Darling in southern Australia and Worcester in South Africa. Such moves reflect changes in the general scale of food production in industrialised countries.


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