What qualifies as an Old-World wine region?

• Posted on 24 July 2024
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The terms “Old World” and “New World,” as applied to wine regions, are meant to describe the political region, the wine-making styles, and the climate effects on the wine products. These, as we will see, are generalizations based on historical precedent, and not absolutes. The classifications became universal when such publications as “The World Atlas of Wine” claimed that the wine producing countries could be divided, putting those regions with long histories of wine production in the “Old World” category were mainly countries in Western Europe.

We start with the Romans, who colonized and conquered the Italian peninsula, then traveled to what is now Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Austria. Taking a step further then, when Spain, Britain, and Portugal went out to colonize the world between the 17^th and 19^th Century, they discovered other places, “New World,” where wine could be cultivated—Australia, New Zealand, United State, Chile, Argentina, and South Africa let’s say. But even this does not categorize all of the world’s wine-growing regions.

Even when adapted to the post-Empire world, the Old-World countries shared a basis for interaction and relations that helped them flourish. It is these shared institutions and relationships that history codified in the exploits of monarchs, emperors, and popes of “Western Civilization.” Diving farther into this category, these Old-World places, climatically, are cooler regions which impact the styles produced. At the basics, the warmth of the sun pours downs on vineyards, so the berries develop flavors, sugar, and color. In a cool-wine region, the velocity at which these develop is slower, meaning that the capability of the wines produced in the Old-World results in wines that are less alcoholic, less fruit-forward, and more acidic than those wine qualified as New-World. One could argue that Old-World wines were created over the centuries to pair with food from the regions where they are made. (More so than New-World, which are often meant to be imbibed on their own.)

But then there are places of the world that have shown evidence of wine-making well before classic “Old World,”  or, at least, a disputed and debated category name. There is an unofficial classification, “Ancient World,” that is applied to these regions. Greece is an example. From 800 BCE, wine-making was evident in Greece and then spread to other Mediterranean areas including Southern Italy, Campania, Calabria and Sicily during the Classical Period (600 BCE–400 BCE) of Greek colonization. The knowledge of grape-growing and wine-making techniques of the Greeks were brought from the Nile Delta area. The first wine trade recorded happened in the 600 BCE, when wines made in Asia Minor were imported through Marseilles to the Gaul area (now France) by Greeks along with their viticulture and oenology technologies. All this was well before the Romans, yet gets excluded from Old-World status, as it forged is path with Byzantium and the East.

A bit of a grey area on classification occurs when talking about Croatia, Hungary, and Slovenia. These regions had Roman Empire influences so should be considered Old-World. The constraint is that the wines produced came with Soviet intervention in their economies. With Soviet patronage, the focus was quantity and not necessarily quality. As they have been freed, they have had to retool wine production. If they were going to sell to Americans, they need to produce with a more quality-minded approach.

There are a few other examples of wine regions that predate Rome. Take Lebanon, with its long history of wine making. The Phoenicians, who lived in Lebanon, merchants sent their trade ships to Cyro, then sailed to Malta, from there, they ventured toward what is now Spain and around to Portugal.

Also excluded is Georgia, where evidence of wine production can date back 8,000 years, which is about 6,000 years before Julius Caesar ever crossed the Rubicon. About 7,000 years ago, Iran began to store wine in large jars. A site with wine-making tools was found in Armenia and dated to 6,000 years ago. Also, ancient remains have been found in Turkey and Bulgaria. Their origins are far from clear, but the Greek historian Herodotus suggested that the Thracians (who inhabited ancient Bulgaria) had a major wine tradition. They left behind ceremonial wine vessels, like kraters and rhyton, and it is suggested that the Greek God Dionysus (from whom Bacchus and Bacchanalia derive) was a Thracian God, borrowed by the Greeks. The Bulgarian wine, Melnik and the Hungarian wine, Tokaji, had been a favorite of Winston Churchill. Fun Fact.

The questions that come to mind then is, “What makes these Ancient-World wines even a thing to take notice or care or spend time with?” How do we even know about them, to put that effort into looking into it? Here at City Vino, we are asked how does wine come to be on the shelves? It has taken the American from the 1930s to the 1970s to get acquainted with wine in general after prohibition. Then it took until the 1990s before the American population was starting to get on board with the first circle of wines. You know—the wines you popularly see on menus at the restaurant; Cab Sauv, Chardonnay, Riesling, Sauv Blanc. The generically simple wines from our own back California yard. Something happened. The internet and boredom. As a population, we were looking for the next new experiment, an exciting thing, something different, not yet explored. The internet gave us resources to see news and articles about regions. 

Perhaps because of our more modern world, or maybe despite it, there is another category to consider. The French Foreign Trade Advisory Committee (CNCCEF, 2009) published “Move towards the Wine World of 2050.” In addition to the “Old-World” and “New-World” classification, CNCCEF defined the “New-New-World” as the latest countries producing significant quantities of wine such as China, Brazil, India, Eastern Europe, and North Africa. Following the definition of the CNCCEF, China has been viewed as “New-New-World” in the world wine map, despite the fact that grape-growing and wine-making in China date back to between 7000 BCE and 9000 BCE. Winemaking technology and wine culture are rooted in Chinese history and the definition of “New-New-World” is a misnomer that imparts a Euro-centric bias onto wine history and ignores fact. In order to address this misunderstanding, we propose that Chinese wine does not belong to the “New-New-World,” but to a new category of “Ancient-World” wine producer. The debate continues. Maybe we will see wines from China in the near future? It could happen.