The terms “Old World” and “New World” are used often in the world of wine to describe different characteristics and styles of wines. The characteristics and styles that are synonymous with these terms are generalizations based on historical precedent, and not on absolutes.
This Friday evening, October 18th 2019, join City Vino as we welcome Horton Vineyards to the shop. Horton will be pouring their 2016 Petit Manseng, which won the top prize in the 2019 Virginia Governor’s Cup, besting the other 500 submitted challengers.
When it comes to wine, the question is often raised whether a $150 bottle of wine tastes better than a $15 bottle of wine. The answer is quite complicated, because preferences for wine are palate-driven, and truly subjective. There are many factors that contribute to the cost of wine in the bottle, including the variety or varieties of grapes used to make the wine, the region where the grapes are grown, how the grapes are cropped, the age of the grapevines, how the grapes are harvested, how long the wine is aged, and in what medium, and how much demand there is for the wine.
Virginia is considered the birthplace of America because the first English colonists settled in Jamestown in 1607. Virginia’s roots in wine history run deep. In 1619, the Virginia House of Burgesses, which was the legislative body for the Colony of Virginia, enacted “Acte 12.” This law required each male colonist to plant and cultivate a minimum of 10 grapevines in order to make wine for the crown.
Pinotage is a red wine grape whose origins lie in South Africa. The grape is the result of a crossing of Pinot Noir and Cinsault, which are both the species Vitis vinifera. The crossing was created in 1925 by Abraham Izak Perold, the first Professor of Viticulture at Stellenbosch University, with the hope of creating a grape with the vigor of Cinsault and the finesse of Pinot Noir.
