Wine Not

Are you looking for an introduction to the exciting wine tasting world?

We all have differing tastes and we all have differing experiences in the wine tasting world. I had a quick look at my camera roll for the past year and was surprised at how many happy and travel moment pictures involved wine. I could perhaps write a novel on wine from the days of innocently getting drunk on wine at the age of ten (I never touched ‘wedding wine’ for ten years after that!) until today – when a lot of my travels and passions are wine-related and I’ve studied wines. And thankfully have tasted quite a few…

I was born in a wine producing town and I’ve met hundreds of stakeholders in the industry since childhood: from exporters to winemakers to merchants – and the industry is huge and varied. But I feel my life has been enriched thanks to the bigger picture of wine.

If you’re new to wine, I’d seriously suggest joining any local tastings, downloading the Vivino wine app (although not to be believed like the bible as it’s a review system after all – but handy even when making wine purchasing decisions in restaurants and supermarkets) and if you’re passionate about wine and want to learn more, try enrolling into a course like the WSET offered ones.

If you’re old to wine, I’d suggest touring and traveling as much as possible to expand your knowledge – as after a few more decades of wine passion, I still learn new things on every trip.

Over the past two decades I’ve visited many amazing wineries in Tuscany, Mendoza, the Douro Valley, Priorat, Galicia, Mount Etna, Santorini, Requena, Sicily, South Africa and Malta – and there are more that I want to see and experience. The great thing about wine tours is that you’re almost always guaranteed beautiful landscapes and greatly paired foods with some interesting contrasts like the nest-like rolled and shaped vines of windy and hot Santorini winelands to six-foot granite lifted vines in Galicia for better aeration under oceanic climate, and many steep and hand-picked vines in many other countries.

According to a 2019 statistical report on world vitiviniculture, in 2018 five countries represented 50% of the world’s vineyards (by vineyard area) with Spain making up the largest chunk at 13%. Strangely China came in 2nd with 12% – before France and Italy (11 and 9% respectively) and another unlikely contender at 5th – Turkey. Although China is a massive grape producer, more than three quarters of their grapes are table grapes whereas in countries like Italy, France, Spain and the USA, wine grapes make up a much larger percentage of grapes produced. No surprise then that the largest wine producing countries are Italy, France, and Spain.

The top four wine consuming countries are USA, France, Italy, and Germany. Although Spain was the largest exporter in 2018 (followed closely by Italy, then France), France’s export value in 2018 was worth more than six billion euros more due to pricing; so, I’ll conclude that Spain still offers the best value wine!

The biggest three wine importing countries in 2018 were Germany, the UK and the USA.

There are now more than 10,000 wine grape varieties in the world, but only a few varieties have achieved widespread popularity and acclaim. The rarest wine grape variety in the world is Caberlot – a genetic cross between Merlot and Cabernet Franc – with just 2 hectares of this variety grown in 2020 in Tuscany.
One of my favourite red wines is pinotage – a South African variety that was cultivated in 1924-5… You might still get your hands on a bottle of Rijks Private Cellar Pinotage 2015 (when Pierre Wahl was the winemaker there) for under 20 euros a bottle which is well worth it.

See how many of the locations, wines, or grapes you recognise in this video and please let us know your favourites.

• Wine Not written by John Thackray – one of the international Thacks Awards panelists, living in Spain. When not traveling and wine-tasting, John is an iGaming specialist reporting into director level in the sports betting industry with a degree in Information Technology.

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