Tuscany? Napa Valley? Let’s toast the new wine hotspots in Slovenia, Portugal – and even Texas
The thirst for fresh grape has oenophiles reaching for their atlases to see where the latest hotspots are – from Orange in New South Wales, Australia, to Barraida, Portugal, and the Walla Walla region of America’s Washington state
Wine lovers will attest to the unmitigated joy found in making a personal wine discovery. Stepping beyond one’s personal comfort zone to sample a wine from Georgia or Tunisia and finding a hidden gem is a singular reward.
While superstar wine regions like Tuscany and Napa Valley will always be popular, there are countless emerging destinations worthy of exploration, sometimes only a few kilometres away.
Economics and human nature are putting the better known wine regions under the radar. The need for new – or reinvigorated – industries and revenue sources are inspiring unlikely locations to jockey for attention.
Enotourism is a burgeoning travel subcategory with roots in the notorious 1976 Judgment of Paris, when the then-emerging Californian wines beat France in a blind tasting.
In 2017, Silicon Valley Bank reported that 60 per cent of American wine sales are at cellar doors, and Tourism Review noted tourist spending on food and wine in Italy increased 70 per cent between 2013 and 2017. Numbers like that make it easy to see why emerging regions are making an effort to market themselves as wine destinations.
But consumers in mature wine markets are on the lookout for more. If the Judgment of Paris did anything, it proved there was more to explore than Bordeaux.
“I think … we are intrinsically wired to explore new things and this includes wine,” says Charlotte Gundry, executive officer for the Orange Region Vignerons Association, in New South Wales, Australia. Gundry points to social media as a factor in broadening our horizons and convincing modern consumers to stray from favourite brands or regions on occasion.
Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong head sommelier Hubert Chabot agrees. “I think we all have become more open-minded about the wine market, especially the younger generation who is excited to explore new wine regions.”
