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.
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
Jacob Conn Take a closer look at the wording here; counties and AVAs are two separate entities. Although a part of the county of Santa Cruz falls within the boundaries of the larger Central Coast AVA, none of the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA itself is within the Central Coast AVA boundaries. It's specifically excluded from Central Coast AVA. It might be easier to think about the importance of elevation, exposure, and soil type within Santa Cruz Mountains AVA.
Can someone clarify this. Is the Santa Cruz Mountains include in the Central Coast. "Directly east and south of San Francisco Bay are the AVAs of Livermore Valley, Santa Cruz Mountains, Ben Lomond Mountain, Santa Clara Valley, San Ysidro District, and the sprawling San Francisco Bay AVA itself." Now this: "Despite the inclusion of Santa Cruz County in the Central Coast AVA, Santa Cruz Mountains AVA is excluded." I think the study guide has this backwards or can someone elaborate? All of the quotes are directly from this study guide. Thank you.
Martin and Vincent,
I think some of the confusion is the source of numbers too. NASS usually reports table grape, grape juice, and wine production all mixed up together. The link provided by Martin shows Pennsylvania ahead of Oregon in gallons, but that can't be right. I think that's pretty clearly a table grape vs. wine grape issue as Pennsylvania produces lots of table grapes and grape juice, but not as much wine. Virginia also doesn't show on the list at all and is one of the states often cited as being #5 in production. It's most likely off the list because it produces very little in terms of table grapes.
Adding to the confusion will be whether products like Manechewitz, Richard's Wild Irish Rose, Mogen David, etc. are included in the stats. A rather significant quantity of grape juice is fermented by these companies and including or not including them will affect the state rankings. Whether New York or Washington leads in production is likely to come down to the question of whether Mogen David's MD 20/20 Habanero Lime-a-Rita constitutes "wine."
Martin Beally - Those numbers are from 2013/14 for Washington. Wines of New York has numbers from 2016 and self-proclaims #2 in juice production, but #3 in acres planted. I'll dig deeper, but it does look like Washington is growing faster just from a bit of research.
Looking for history of Phylloxera in US. Was it an east coast disease that was transported to Europe and then Cali when winemakers came from Europe and brought their vines with VV rootstock?