Have you ever wondered how wine grapes are grown in what seems like difficult climates like South America, Germany, South Africa, and Canada? The answer lies in mitigating factors such as choice of grape, proximity to bodies of water, currents, winds, altitude, aspect, mountain ranges, and even types of soils.
Argentina is responsible for 45 percent of the production of wine in South America, and is the sixth-top wine producing country in the world. As of 2018, the country has over 489,000 acres of vineyards.
Viognier is a grape that is as hard to grow as the name is to pronounce. The variety is early ripening, leaving it susceptible to late spring frosts that can burn the delicate buds that would ultimately form all the green growth including the grapes themselves.
Rosé is a style of wine that is made when juice from red grapes is left in contact with the skins for only a short period of time. The resulting wine has more characteristics of the grapes themselves, and not usually any tannins or other flavors from the skins. This skin contact gives the wine shades of delicate pinks or oranges, up to bright and vivid salmons or deep pinks, depending on the amount of contact and possibly the winemaking techniques used.
The Petit Verdot (PV) grape’s origins in France date back to the 16th/17th century. The grape is believed to be the child of a grape called Balisca, which originated in Albania, and it was believed to have been brought to France by either the Romans or Greeks.