New World wine
New World wines are those wines produced outside the traditional winegrowing areas of Europe and the Middle East, in particular from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States. The phrase connotes a distinction between these "New World" wines and those wines produced in "Old World" countries with a long-established history of wine production, essentially in Europe and the Middle East, most notably: France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Romania, Georgia, and Switzerland.
Both the quantity and quality of New World wine production have increased greatly since about 1970.
Outside their home markets, New World wines can be said to have been very successful in exports to non-wine producing countries, above all the United Kingdom, and also to North America. But they have achieved relatively little penetration in old wine-making countries such as France and Italy.
History
Early wines in the Americas
Alcoholic beverages were made by Pre-Columbian indigenous peoples of the Americas. Indigenous peoples are known to have used maize, potatoes, quinoa, pepper tree fruits and strawberries to make alcoholic beverages. Despite the existence of species of the genus Vitis in Venezuela, Colombia, Central America and Mexico, indigenous peoples did not ferment these species and therefore did not make wine.Spanish settlers in the Americas initially brought Old World animals and plants to the Americas for self-consumption in their attempt to reproduce the diet they had in Spain and Europe. A further stimulus for the production of New World wine in Spanish America might have been that European wines exported to the Americas were in general not transported in bottles nor sealed with cork which made them prone to be sour.
Attempts to grow vines in the Americas began in Hispaniola during the second voyage of Columbus in 1494. Ferdinand II of Aragon, King of Spain, banned the planting of vines in Hispaniola in 1503. After the establishment of vines in Hispaniola in early 16th century vineyards were successfully established in Mexico in 1524. Hernán Cortés, conqueror of Mexico, promoted the establishment of vines and made it in 1524 a requirement for Spanish settlers that wanted to acquire land in the Mexican Plateau to establish vineyards in their lands. The growing of vines in Peru is known to have been ventured by Bartolomé de Terrazas and Francisco de Carabantes in the 1540s. The latter established vineyards in Ica from where vines then were taken into Chile and Argentina.
The most common of the early grapes was a black grape called Mission which was planted in Mexico and subsequently also in Texas, and later in California. Grapes of the same stock were planted in Peru where it received the name Negra peruana and from this came the most common Chilean grape: the País. This Chilean grape was introduced into what is now Argentina where it came to be known as Criolla chica. These grapes are supposed to have originated from Spain but there is also a possibility that they originated from Italy as they resemble very much the variety Mónica grown in Sardinia as well as Spain.
In the second half of the 16th century, the demand for wine among Spanish settlers caused a surge in Spanish wine exports to Mexico and Cuba. However, this was not the case for Peru, Chile, and Argentina, where cultivation of vineyards had proven to be a success and, thus, required fewer imports of Spanish wines. Relative to Peru and Chile, Spanish settlers in Mexico established very few vineyards by comparison.
In the 16th and 17th century the principal winegrowing area of the Americas was in the central and southern coast of Peru, specifically in the area of Ica and Pisco. Apart from Peru and Chile Paraguay developed despite its high temperatures into a wine-making area in the 16th century. Hernando Arias de Saavedra who visited the city of Asunción in 1602 said there was 187 vineyards totalling 1.768.000 individual plants. Other sources cite 2.000.000 and 1.778.000 plants around the same time. Paraguayan wine was exported downstream to Santa Fe and from there to the Platine market. Paraguayan wine is also known to have reached Córdoba in central Argentina.
Changes in the Americas and opening of South Africa
In 1595 the Spanish Crown banned the establishment of new vineyards in the Americas, but this order was largely ignored. The ban sought to protect Iberian wine from competition by Peruvian wine and can be considered an example of commodity mercantilism. Moreover, the Spanish Crown banned the export of Peruvian wine to Panama and Guatemala in 1614 and 1615 respectively. The enforcement of the restrictions on wine growth and trade in the Spanish Empire was in general lax. The only market in the Americas the Spanish Crown managedto some degreeto secure for Iberian wine was Mexico.The growth of mining in Potosí in present-day Bolivia, which became the largest city in the Americas in the 17th century, created a constant demand for wine which was supplied mainly from Peru. In Potosí part of salaries were paid with wine. Furthermore, Peruvian wine growers supplied the city of Lima, the most important political centre in South America in the 16th and 17th centuries. In Chile wine demand was guaranteed by the Army of Arauco, a permanent army financed with silver from Potosí which fought native Mapuches. In the view that Parauguayan wine could not compete in these three markets Paraguayans abandoned winegrowing and sought instead income from tobacco and yerba mate exports. In the 18th century practically no winegrowing occurred in Paraguay.
In 1687 the whole southern coast of Peru was struck by the 1687 Peru earthquake which destroyed the cities of Villa de Pisco and Ica. The earthquake destroyed wine cellars and mud containers used for wine storage. This event marked the end of the Peruvian wine-boom. The suppression of the Society of Jesus in Spanish America in 1767 caused the Jesuit vineyards in Peru to be auctioned at high prices but new owners did not have the same expertise as the Jesuits contributing to a production decline. Peruvian wine-making was further challenged by the fact that production of pisco, also made from grapes, rose from being exceeded in the early 18th century by wine to represent 90% of the grape beverages prepared in Peru in 1764. Even after the shift to pisco making vineyards in Peru encountered economic troubles since in the late 18th century the Spanish Crown lifted the ban on the production of rum in Peru which was cheaper to make but of lower quality than pisco.
The decline of Peruvian wine even caused Peru to import some wine from Chile as it happened in 1795 when Lima imported 5.000 troves from Concepción in southern Chile. This particular export showed the emergence of Chile relative to Peru as a wine-making region. Eduard Friedrich Poeppig claimed, as some others did before him, that the wines from Concepción were the best of Chile, likely due to the less arid climate of southern Chile.
The New World imported wine from the early days of European colonisation, particularly for religious purposes. Perhaps the first significant example of the trade going the other way was Constantia from South Africa, which by the 18th century had become a firm favourite among European royalty.
New World wines in the Industrial Age
Vine cuttings from the Cape of Good Hope were brought to the penal colony of New South Wales by Governor Phillip on the First Fleet. An attempt at wine making from these first vines failed, but with perseverance, other settlers managed to successfully cultivate vines for winemaking, and Australian-made wine was available for sale domestically by the 1820s. In 1822 Gregory Blaxland became the first person to export Australian wine, and was the first winemaker to win an overseas award. In 1830 vineyards were established in the Hunter Valley. In 1833 James Busby returned from France and Spain with a serious selection of grape varieties including most classic French grapes and a good selection of grapes for fortified wine production.Early Australian winemakers faced many difficulties, particularly due to the unfamiliar Australian climate. However they eventually achieved considerable success. "At the 1873 Vienna Exhibition the French judges, tasting blind, praised some wines from Victoria, but withdrew in protest when the provenance of the wine was revealed, on the grounds that wines of that quality must clearly be French." Australian wines continued to win high honours in French competitions. A Victorian Syrah competing in the 1878 Paris Exhibition was likened to Château Margaux and "its taste completed its trinity of perfection." One Australian wine won a gold medal "first class" at the 1882 Bordeaux International Exhibition and another won a gold medal "against the world" at the 1889 Paris International Exhibition.
Chilean wine begun to modernize in 1851 when Silvestre Ochagavia imported cuttings of French varieties. Silvestre Ochagavia is credited with introducing the varieties Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot noir, Cot, Merlot, Semillon and Riesling into Chile. Other wealthy wine growers followed suite. By the 1870s the wine industry was the most developed area of Chilean agriculture.
In 1863, a phylloxera plague was detected in France, which then spread throughout Europe, destroying quality European grapevines. In 1873, it appeared in California, in 1875 in Australia, and in 1880 in South Africa, becoming a global catastrophe. Chilean grapevines, however, remained free of the plague and subsequently contributed significantly to the global recovery of the wine industry.
Image:Vendimia.png|thumb|right|250px|Grape harvest in Mendoza Province of Argentina
The region of Mendoza, or historically Cuyo, experienced an unprecedented wine-boom in the 19th century and early 20th century which turned it into the fifth winegrowing area of the world and the first in Latin America. The establishment of the Buenos Aires-Mendoza railroad in 1885 ended the lengthy and costly trade with carts that connected these two regions of Argentina and sparked development of vineyards in Mendoza. Furthermore, massive immigration to Río de La Plata mainly from Southern Europe increased demand and bought know-how to the old-fashioned Argentine wine industry. The vineyards of Mendoza totalled 1.000 ha in 1830 but grew to 45.000 in 1910, surpassing Chile which had during the 19th century had a larger areas planted with vines and a more modern industry. By 1910 around 80% of the area of Argentine vineyards were planted with French stock, mainly Malbec.
During the 19th century Peruvian wine-making went further into decline. Demand in industrialized Europe caused many Peruvian winegrowers to shift the land use from vineyards to lucrative cotton fields, contributing further to the decline of the wine and pisco industry. This was particularly true during the time of the American Civil War when the cotton prices skyrocketed due to the Blockade of the South and its cotton fields. Also in South Africa did wine making suffer a stunning blow in the 1860s with the implementation of the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty in 1860 that forced South African wines to compete with French wines in Britain and resulted a doubling of French wine imports to Britain. South African vineyards also suffered a second setback after the arrival of the Phylloxera plague in the 1880s.
| Country | Share |
| Argentina | 39.51 |
| Chile | 33.64 |
| United States | 19.93 |
| Brazil | 3.98 |
| Peru | 1.22 |
| Uruguay | 1.14 |
| Bolivia | 0.32 |
| Mexico | 0.22 |