Mike DeSimone - Wines of the Southern Hemisphere: The Complete Guide

THE COMPLETE GUIDE

WINES

OF THE

SOUTHERN
HEMISPHERE

MIKE DESIMONE & JEFF JENSSEN

FOREWORD BY MICHEL ROLLAND

STERLING EPICURE is a trademark of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

The distinctive Sterling logo is a registered trademark of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

2012 by Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen
Maps 2012 by Jeffrey L. Ward, Inc.

A complete list of picture credits appears here.

Designed by Christine Heun

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-4027-9388-2

Some of the terms in this book may be trademarks or registered trademarks. Use of such terms does not imply any association with or endorsement by such trademark owners, and no association or endorsement is intended or should be inferred. This book is not authorized by, and neither the authors nor the publisher are affiliated with, the owners of the trademarks referred to in this book.

Every effort has been made to have the facts about the wineries, including the contact information, as up-to-date and accurate as possible. The authors would welcome any input should anything differ from whats showing in these pages. They can be reached at www.worldwineguys.

For information about custom editions, special sales, and premium and corporate purchases, please contact Sterling Special Sales at 800-805-5489 or specialsales@sterlingpublishing.com.

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This book is dedicated to our friends, family, and our colleagues in the world of wineyou all know who you arewho encouraged us, held our hands, tasted with us, traveled with us, cooked for us, pushed us when we were just too tired, and understood when we stayed in to write. We thank you all from the bottom of our hearts and the bottom of our wine glasses.

Salud, Prost, Sant, Cheers!

T he time has come for a book about the wines of the Southern Hemisphere.

To write a book only on the wines of the Southern Hemisphere is a great idea: Nobody has ever done this before. I like this idea very much because I personally decided to visit the Southern Hemisphere 25 years ago, when I was asked to become a consultant at Bodegas Etchart. Now I consult for close to twenty wineries in Argentina, Chile, and South Africa.

Argentina, the first Southern Hemisphere country that I visited, has beautiful vineyards in the Andes Mountains. After my original contact with these beautiful vineyards, I then went to Chile, which has amazing vineyards between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean. My life as a consultant also brings me to South Africa, which is amazing as well. It has the most beautiful views from any vineyard in the world. Unfortunately I dont work in Australia and New Zealand because then I would have three harvests at the same time. Even though I am a flying winemaker, I am not that crazy; I cant spread myself over three continents at the same time.

The Southern Hemisphere has a long history of winemaking, but has become especially important in the past 25 years. We now have so many good vineyards producing fantastic wines from Carmenere, Malbec, Syrah, and many other varieties.

To write this book now is a wonderful idea, because the wine-drinking public may not know what is happening around the globe. At this time only Bordeaux is selling cases of wine for US$700 in high volumemaybe in the future we will see other countries, especially those from the Southern Hemisphere, selling large volumes of well-crafted wines at the prices they deserve.

I hope that you enjoy this book, because it is extremely well done. It is a large volume of work, and very informative. This book will serve as a guide to your exploration of this vast region. After reading, you need to taste the wines from these countries and enjoy them for your own pleasure.

Michel Rolland

At about the same time that Christopher Columbus discovered the New World in his quest to find a shorter route to Asia, the Incas, in tandem with the Huarpes, were digging a series of irrigation canals in the foothills of the Andes Mountains. Today, those same canals are used to supply water to the vineyards of Mendoza, Argentina; without the ingenious system of funneling snowmelt, this modern-day wine region would be nothing but arid desert. This brings into focus the fact that the New World isnt really that new at alland also causes us to reflect that the wines thought of as New World arent all that new either. With the exception of wines from North America, almost everything labeled New World is from the Southern Hemisphere. The history of winemaking in these countries parallels European colonization and stretches back hundreds of years: Wines that originate south of the equator are not necessarily new; they are simply unfamiliar to many American, European, and Asian wine drinkers and to those living on other continents in the hemisphere.

Winemaking moved from Europe to the Southern Hemisphere in a variety of ways, but much of it was tied to the Catholic Church, either directly or indirectly. In South America and New Zealand, the earliest grapes were planted by missionaries, for both sacramental and table wine, while in South Africa and Australia, persecuted Protestants played an important role in the development of a viable winemaking industry. Although there are analogous forces that shaped the history of wine in each country, varying factors within individual nations, including ethnic backgrounds of settlers, economics, transportation, and of course terrain and climate, all had a hand in causing distinct differences in the style of wine each one produces.

You will find detailed history and much more between the covers of this book, but for the moment, fast-forward with us to the twenty-first century, as we discover that wine loversespecially young millennialsare drinking more and more wine every year. Research shows they are drinking wine from a variety of countries and regions, not just Old-World Europe. This trend has led to an amazing jump in worldwide consumption of wines from the Southern Hemisphere, whose share increased from a mere 3 percent in 1990 to 27 percent in 2009. The major wine-producing countries below the equator are Argentina, Australia, Chile, New Zealand, and South Africa, each of which boasts a multitude of wine regions, varietals, styles, and outstanding producers. In 2009, Australia surpassed France in the amount of wine imported into the United States, placing Australia just behind Italy. If current trends continue, Chile and Argentina will also have surpassed France by the time you are reading this, moving wines from countries in the Southern Hemisphere into three of the top five import positions in the US market.

Unfortunately, wine drinkers looking for definitive information on their newfound favorites are not likely to receive much help from other authorities on the subject: writing devoted to these wines is nowhere near keeping up with recent bottlings making their way to wine shops and restaurants. A quick scan of some of the major titles in the world of the vine reveals a paltry number of pages covering the Southern Hemisphere. What this means is that other wine books generally devote 8 percent or less of their total page space to the five main wine-producing countries of the Southern Hemisphere, and many omit Brazil and Uruguay completely or mention them only in passing. Even web searches, whether by hemisphere, country, or region, fail to turn up much objective information; many sites are sponsored by consortiums, importers, and producers.