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Thread: Red wine

  1. #31
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    [QUOTE]
    Quote Originally Posted by ficuscarica View Post
    @Albion: That´s interesting. Look at this map: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Uk_topo_en.jpg
    Seen it many times, I contribute to geography, flora and fauna articles on Wikipedia often.

    Especially around Exeter and Plymouth there are hills that could provide good conditions on their sun-exposed sides.
    If you mean the brown / red hills then I highly doubt it, those are Dartmoor and they're very wet, windswept and have poor soils.
    Basically that far north and close to the sea and at that altitude leads to a poor climate. Most of it is all hill farms, sheep, moorland and abandoned bronze age villages.
    I know on the continent the hills are generally forested in meadows, but here rainfall significantly increases with altitude.





    This is also the warmest region in England.
    This isn't totally true. It's the mildest region with the warmest winters, but the south east from the Isle of Wight to Dover has the best summer temperatures.
    The summer temperatures are what really counts with wine. The vines can survive our mild winters easily, but they need a lot of sun and heat in summer and the hottest parts of England in summer are the south and east.
    These tend to have a more continental-like climate whereas the south west is definitely temperate. The temperate climate in the south west means the winters are mild, but the summers aren't as hot as in the south east.

    These are the real maps you need to look at:


    Sunlight - notice how the South West is similar to Baden and the South East to the Rhine and Belgium.




    See what I mean about the South West?

    Sunlight and temperature are key. Some useful maps can be found here.

    Lack of sunlight leads to more acidity in my opinion. That is partly why apples from northern climates tend to be "sharper" in flavour than ones from southern areas (compare Cox's or Elstar to Golden Delicious - the latter is grown here in the south east only).

    Acidity is the key to making beverages.

    Now find a place with a good, warm ground and maybe some good white wine can be produced. The mild winters could allow some cottage and windmill palms to grow in the vineyard. Some people with the right vision could really produce a good wine and form a beautiful and unique landscape. It´s mainly about courage and passion.
    On that map, the yellow marked hills would be much better for vines. They tend to be steep, if not high and have good soils.
    Rich soils lead to vine growth at the expense of grapes, but Dartmoor's soils are just too poor and acidic I think.

    The lower, yellow marked hills in the south west are like this:




    The south east tends to be more like this:



    I think hot, steep hills with warm stones are really the key to a good English wine. The difference between the average temperature in July in Southern England and here is as big as the difference between here and central Italy. This has to be compensated by choosing really warm places for the wine to grow - as steep as possible.
    Well there's plenty of hills like that, but if the hills are too steep they'll have their own micro-climate which here tends to be cool and wet leading to very acidic soils.
    The south west can grow grapes but they're grown as far as southern Wales. I still think the South East is the better area since it has the warmest summers which is what grapes really need.

    Grapes have been grown in the south east (especially Kent) since the Romans and have experienced periods of prosperity (medieval warm period) and periods of decline (dark age interruptions, little Ice Age, French competition).
    The Little Ice Age and French competition finished the industry in the industrial period. It started recovering in the 1950s.


    A vineyard near Cambridge - see your map


    A vineyard near Canterbury

    As the climate gets hotter especially the northern German wine growers, who focus on Riesling, will get problems, because Riesling doesn´t like the hot summers we now have. But that´s not too big a problem, because red wine gets more and more popular and they can gradually exchange their varieties.
    A lot of the German hardier varieties are grown here. I think as the climates warm you'll get viticulture migrating up the Rhine nearly to the Low Countries.

    Here in my region we mostly grow Pinot Noir and other Pinots, which don´t have a problem with the hot summers and will still produce a great wine when the climate gets warmer. But the changing climate encourages wine growers to try growing more mediterranean wine like Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. More and more vineyards have those varieties.
    Many of the vines in England Vitis vinifera or hybrids. The most popular varieties grown are "Seyval Blanc" (hybrid), "Reichensteiner", "Müller-Thurgau" and "Bacchus". Notice how the majority are German.

    Lesser grown varieties are "Chardonnay", "Madeleine Angevine", "Huxelrebe", "Ortega" and "Schonburger".

    Amongst the few reds that are grown are "Dornfelder", "Pinot_meunier" and "Pinot Noir".

    All our own cultivars were lost with our industry.


    Now obviously it'd take a large change in climate and a lot of effort to compete with the great wine growing regions of the world, but I do believe we have scope for a decent industry.
    For table grapes and cheap wines at least along with perhaps the odd superior wine or two to enter into the competitions.

    The average man on the street isn't a connoisseur of fine wines. Most people accept good wines but aren't looking for anything special. When they are they buy quality at a high price.

    I can imagine wines like Riesling, Chardonnay or Auxerrois to be successfully grown in England, if the right, warm spots are found.
    The right places are there because they're already being grown here. I think you underestimate our climate and the hardiness of grape vines.
    Grapes need warm, hot summers which the south of England can increasingly offer. Even Denmark has a small industry based around hybrids now. although Denmark is really at the edge of cultivation.

    If climate change does goes as predicted we may see some areas in Southern Europe lost to cultivation or switching to other varieties. England cannot compete with France but does have a lot to offer.

    Some interesting quotes:

    The limestone soils of Kent and other portions of southern England are suitable for growing the grapes used to produce sparkling wine, and particularly on south-facing slopes
    Even Scotland's having a go, but I do really think they're pushing it. This will be vinegar, Scotland is one of the cloudiest countries in Europe. It'd only work on Tiree, it has the sun but I'm not sure about the heat.

    Chef Peter Gottgens, owner of the Ardeonaig Hotel in Perthshire, planned to produce a white Riesling wine in 2010 to serve his hotel guests.It would be the first wine produced in Scotland in commercial quantities. Gottens had planted 48 vines as an experiment in 2006, and planned to expand this to 800. Gottens said: “Cold is not the problem, the lack of sunshine is our biggest problem. If the wine is fit for consumption it will be served by the glass with our food. If it's not good enough we can make it into vinegar.”
    The Romans introduced wine making to the United Kingdom, and even tried to grow grapes as far north as Lincolnshire. It was successfully done till the cooling in the 800s although the remnants of this can still be seen to this day in the city of Lincoln in the gardens of the medieval Bishop's Palace. Winemaking continued at least down to the time of the Normans with over 40 vineyards in England mentioned in the Domesday Book, although much of what was being produced was for making communion wine for the Eucharist.
    Just as English wine began to recover from the epidemics of Phylloxera and Powdery Mildew in the mid 19th Century, brought back with the Explorers of New America, commercial English wine was dealt a heavy blow. In 1860 the government, under Lord Palmerston (Liberal) supported free trade and drastically cut the tax on imported wines from 1 shilling to 2 pence, a decrease of 83%. English wine was therefore out-competed by superior foreign products that could be sold at a lower cost to the customer. The twilight of British winemaking tradition, which stretched back to the very first Roman explorers, was brought to an end with the onset of the First World War, as the need for crops and food took priority over wine production. The rationing of sugar pushed the knife even deeper until, for the first time in 2000 years, English wines were no longer being produced in either Wessex, nor the rest of the country.
    Viticulture was revived in the 1970s onwards. The first English wines were influenced by the sweet German wines like Liebfraumilch and Hock that were popular in the 1970s, and were blended white and red sweet wines, called cream wine (creams). The largest vineyard in England is Denbies Wine Estate in Surrey, which has 265 acres (1.07 km2) under vines, and a visitors' centre that is open all year round.
    In 2004 a panel judging European sparkling wines awarded most of the top ten positions to English wines - the remaining positions going to French Champagnes. Similar results have encouraged an explosion of sparkling wine plantings. English still wines too have begun to pick up awards at most big wine competitions, notably Decanter, and the IWSC.
    Winemaking has spread from the South East and South West and also to the Midlands and the north of England, with Yorkshire, Shropshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Lancashire boasting at least one vineyard each as of 2007.
    Significant plantings have been happening across the south of the country with a number of farmers contract growing vines for some of the major English producers. Farmers are looking at the potential benefits of growing vines as the return per tonne for grapes over more traditional crops are not to be ignored. A field of wheat might yield 3 tonnes per acre at around Ł120 per tonne. Growing grapes could yield 3 to 4 tonnes per acre at around Ł950 to Ł1100 per tonne.

    There's definitely an industry for grapes in England, even if it's just for table grapes and cheap plonk. And if we can produce a handful of quality wines then that is good enough for me.

    Sorry for the huge post, I just get carried away.

  2. #32
    Veteran Member ficuscarica's Avatar
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    Thanks for the awesome information, very interesting.

  3. #33
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    Red wine is the most overrated drink ever.

  4. #34
    Iberian Member Catrau's Avatar
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    Nobody notices Iberian reds. -That's good!
    You can't imagine how glad I'm. Keep consuming french wines because they are the best, right?!!
    This way, we can calmly continue drinking our fantastic iberian wines at a nice price away from speculation, because it's what's going to happen if they become world known. You don't need to make a big effort to understant where conditions are the best for the grapes and wine maturation: climate (cold winters and hot summers) and soils (schistous).
    I could show you a nice website where you can find the usual results of blind wine tasting (you know: no labels, no countries, no predefined ideas) but I won't because I want our "gods nectar" to continue afordable since production has not the french scale. I can tell you that It's very unusal to buy a bed red in Portugal even at a 4€ a bottle. I haven't found one in years.


    Alentejo




    Douro:




    La Rioja:
    Vivanco wine cellars and museum at Briones.


    Frank Gehry's Marqués de Riscal wine cellar at Elciego


    La Rioja vineyards


    Cheers

  5. #35
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    I've had wines from Portugal but they were always Port wines. Can't really comment on those since I don't like sweet wine very much.

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    Iberian Member Catrau's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Robert View Post
    I've had wines from Portugal but they were always Port wines. Can't really comment on those since I don't like sweet wine very much.
    Douro wines are produced in the same region of Port but that's all. We have a lot of different wines apart from the fantastic reds. The best-selling worldwide is Rosé. Do you believe that we don't drink that stuff? We have Verde, but that's different story, a cluster of Verde called Alvarinho is also something to try. We have Moscatel and Madeira that are sweet, kind of Port.

    My favorites are reds from Alentejo and Douro.
    Of course there are some extremely expensive stuff but in general it is cheaper than french and the price/quality relation is fantastic. I haven't lost the will to buy me a Douro “Barca Velha” one of this days but it ranges the +200€.


    https://www.garrafeiranacional.com/v...s_prod_pt_404/




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    Quote Originally Posted by Catrau View Post
    Nobody notices Iberian reds. -That's good!
    You can't imagine how glad I'm. Keep consuming french wines because they are the best, right?!!
    This way, we can calmly continue drinking our fantastic iberian wines at a nice price away from speculation, because it's what's going to happen if they become world known. You don't need to make a big effort to understant where conditions are the best for the grapes and wine maturation: climate (cold winters and hot summers) and soils (schistous).
    I could show you a nice website where you can find the usual results of blind wine tasting (you know: no labels, no countries, no predefined ideas) but I won't because I want our "gods nectar" to continue afordable since production has not the french scale. I can tell you that It's very unusal to buy a bed red in Portugal even at a 4€ a bottle. I haven't found one in years.
    Unfortunately, besides Port and Madeira wines, Portuguese red wines are still not that well known abroad (well, outside the Portuguese-speaking world). Last time I travelled abroad - to New York - it wasn't easy to find a restaurant with Portuguese wines other than Porto (Port) and Madeira wines. Yet, all of them had a super extensive list of French wines, some at exorbitant prices (like +500€). Anyway, I agree with you on the excellent quality of our red wines, and for that they should receive their well deserved credit at the world's best restaurants and foodie's centers. By the way, I drink rosé wine, it's one of my favorites in the summer to go along with seafood dishes.

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    cabernet sauvignon for life

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    I drink red dry and semi dry wine. Russian Fanagoria red dry, Macedonian Stobi red semi dry, Spanish red dry Sangre de Torro, South African red dry Pinotage by Misty Walleys and Portuguese dry Coehlo Branco. All are widely presented in Russia, have acceptable price and good quality.

    Most frequent of all listed are Macedonian Stobi and SA Pinotage by Misty Walleys. I used to drink Montenegrin Vranac by Plantaze, but now I rarely see it here. Same as Magyar Egri Bikaver. We've got tonns of cheap Argentinian and Chilean wine recently, but I prefer to drink something I'm used to or something what was recommended to me.

    I have two bottles of Massandra winery (established in 1800s Russian empire) from Crimea 2001 when it was still Ukrainian, red dry and white dry wines, its price now is around 750 euros for both atm, I will wait some more time, it's considered to be a valuable year, so I will sell it later. Found them in 2020 at some goddamn shelves during repairing the flat where my parents probably placed them long ago after coming back from Nikolaev.
    Last edited by Victor; 09-19-2023 at 05:05 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Daco Celtic View Post
    cabernet sauvignon for life
    Cabernet Saperavi (Georgian/South Russia spread grapes sort) is great, too.

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