Wine For Dummies by McCarthy

Wine For Dummies by McCarthy

Author:McCarthy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2012-08-15T16:00:00+00:00


Chapter 12

Spain, Germany, and Elsewhere in Europe

In This Chapter

Spain on the rise

Great finds from Portugal

Germany’s unique ways

Austria’s exciting dry whites and unique reds

The Greek renaissance

In the past, no one ever used the phrase European wine when talking generally about the wines of France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Germany. The wines had nothing in common. But today, two factors have changed the way we look at the wines of these countries. First, the wines of the European Union member countries now share a common legislative umbrella, within the European Union. Second, non-European wines — from California, Australia, Chile, and Argentina — have inundated the U.S. market, popularizing a nomenclature (varietal names, such as Chardonnay) and flavors (fruity, fruitier, fruitiest) foreign to the European, or “Old World,” model.

When we compare Europe’s wines to non-European, or “New World,” wines (see Part IV), we notice that the diverse wines of Europe have many things in common after all. Most European wines are usually named for their place of production rather than their grape (see Chapter 4); European winemaking is tethered to tradition and regulations; the wines, for the most part, have local flavor instead of conforming to an international concept of how wine should taste (although, sadly, we’re seeing an emerging “internationalization” of wine styles); and these wines are relatively low in fruitiness. European wines tend to embody the traditions of the people who make them and the flavors of the place where their vines grow — unlike New World wines, which tend to embody grape variety and a general fruitiness of flavor.

Despite these similarities among European wines, the countries of Europe each make distinctly different wines. The importance of France and Italy has earned each of these countries a whole chapter (see Chapters 10 and 11, respectively). Here, we concentrate on the next five most important wine-producing countries: Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, and Greece.

Intriguing Wines from Old Spain

Spain is a hot, dry, mountainous country with more vineyard land than any other nation on earth. It ranks third in the world in wine production, after France and Italy.

Spanish wine has awakened from a long period of dormancy and underachievement. Spain is now one of the wine world’s most vibrant arenas. For decades, only Spain’s most famous red wine region, Rioja (ree-oh-ha), and the classic fortified wine region, Sherry, had any international presence for fine wines. (For more on Sherry, see Chapter 16.) Now, many other wine regions in Spain are making seriously good wines. Besides Rioja, the following regions, which we explore in the next sections, are an important part of the wine quality picture in Spain today, and their wines are generally available (see Figure 12-1):

Ribera del Duero (ree-bear-ah dell dwair-oh), now famous for its high quality red wines, has helped to ignite world interest in Spanish wines.

Priorato (pree-oh-rah-to), mountainous and inaccessible, and one of the world’s “hot” new regions for red wine, is north of the city of Tarragona, in northeast Spain.

Penedés



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