The Bekaa Valley is becoming known for its reds and dry rosés as the Lebanese industry goes from strength to strength, with over 7 million bottles now produced every year. In fact, the company was presented with 2009’s Revelation award at Bordeaux’s annual Semaine des Primeurs event, a world-renowned wine tasting and evaluation expo. There are indigenous varieties on top of these - Musar being one - and wineries such as Ixsir have overcome the challenges of growing grapes in the country’s mountainous regions (at heights of over a kilometer above sea level) with aplomb. Ixsir has made some award-winning Lebanese wine - ShutterstockĪ wine-producing region since around 2,000 years before Alexander the Great, Lebanese vintners nowadays work mainly with French grapes, with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot being among the favorites. Planted in ash and often concealed in natural craters to protect them from the harsh Atlantic winds, the high tannic qualities of a lot of the wines mean they’re not necessarily immediately welcoming, but are a wonderful discovery all the same.
Today, you can tour the vineyards of the Canaries and see vines being grown in a surreal, almost lunar landscape of black volcanic rock. Thomas Jefferson, after retiring to Monticello, ordered Canary wine for entertaining, contemporary records believing it to be “the richest, the most firm, the best bodied and most lastingest wine”. Indeed, Shakespeare’s Mistress Quickly could joke that “you have drunk too much canaries” and the audience would have known that this referenced a very expensive wine reserved for the upper classes. We’re visiting another outlier next, as the Spanish-owned archipelago, located around 60km from the Moroccan coast, has been known as a producer of fine wines for centuries. Canary Islands, SpainĬanary Island grapes are planted in ash craters - Shutterstock Due to the extremely rugged growing conditions of much of the country, there are a number of varieties that can only be found in Croatia, including Plavac Mali - a small, blueish grape that can produce wines of up to 17% alcohol. Pliny the Elder wrote in the first century CE that the wines of Krk were the best in the entire Roman Empire for medicinal purposes, and the island was for centuries a preserve not only of exclusive wines, but also of the last vestiges of the Venetian and Dalmatian languages.Īs to the rest of the country, the north and the interior running between Hungary and Bosnia to the Serbian border, specializes in fruity white wines, while the further south you head along the coast, the vineyards give way to those producing heavy reds. Viniculture in Bulgaria is around 7,000 years old - ShutterstockĪ post shared by beautiful island of Krk off the northern coast of Croatia is home to the only place in the world that produces Vrbnička žlahtina wine it’s a light, fresh white that goes extremely well with sheep’s cheese, another Croatian delight. Due to the high altitude at which the grapes are grown, the wines can be quite acidic, but the Sula sun-design label is becoming more and more recognized throughout the world. The potential he saw in the area was realized, and now the Sula vineyards are the daddy of them all. In 1996, Silicon Valley employee Rajeev Samant quit his job and, taking a Californian wine-maker with him (willingly, one presumes), repurposed his family’s land in the region. Odd though it may seem, the region around the ancient city of Nashik is known as “The Wine Capital of India”, having 22 wineries - around half of the country’s total - and is home to a number of fall wine festivals. With 22 wineries, Nashik has become the “The Wine Capital of India” - Shutterstock
Uruguayans, however, are very proud of their love affair with this relatively rare grape. Native to southwestern France and imported when European settlers arrived, it produces a smoky, almost spicy wine that is often blended with Cabernet to make it less aggressive. More interestingly though, Uruguay has a grape variety known as Tannat, which has taken the position of “national grape”. And that’s a good thing rich reds and crisp, vivacious whites are what they’re about. South America has been known for the quality of its wine for some decades now, but most people will only be familiar with varieties from Argentina or Chile.
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