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  • History View current version

North America

Contents
  1. The United States
  2. History of Wine in America
  3. The AVA System and Labeling Requirements
  4. California
  5. California: The North Coast
  6. California: The Central Coast
  7. California: The Central Valley and Sierra Foothills
  8. Washington
  9. Oregon
  10. New York
  11. Other Winemaking Areas of the US
  12. Canada
  13. Ontario
  14. British Columbia
  15. Mexico
  16. Review Quizzes

The United States

The United States of America is the world’s fourth largest producer of wine and claims the world’s sixth highest acreage of land under vine.

California produces approximately 85% of all American wine, followed by Washington, New York, and Oregon. Compared with traditional wine-producing countries, the US has a large population, surpassing France in early 2011 to become the world’s largest wine consumer. Despite this, the US ranked only 62nd in per capita consumption by 2016, with just 30% of the population identifying as wine drinkers. In 2019, the US experienced its first decline in wine consumption in 25 years, as the industry lost market share to fast-growing categories such as canned hard seltzers, spirits, and craft beer. Still, the US continues to provide the world’s most substantial market for fine wines. Further, over the past 20 years, powerful American critics have had a significant influence on winemakers and markets worldwide.

History of Wine in America

In the early ninth century, the Viking Leif Eriksson brought his boat aground at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada, becoming the first European to definitively set foot on the North American continent. He christened his discovery Vinland—possibly a reference to the meadows before him or, as recounted in the 13th-century poem “Saga of the Greenlanders,” a tribute to the wealth of native grapevines. Unlike in South America, several species of wild grapevines awaited the first colonists of North America, including Vitis labrusca, Vitis rotundifolia, and Vitis aestivalis. Vitis vinifera, the source of fine wine

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