Long (probably a few thousand years) ago in a vineyard far away (most likely somewhere in modern-day Iran), the Mother of All Grapes existed. Those different climates influence the resulting wine such that it’s possible for you to prefer, say, Australian Shiraz over Volnay.Įven though all grapes look more or less the same - round and bunched - they’re actually little spheres of biological wonder. Some grow in warm climates like Southern Italy and Australia. Some grapes grow in cool climates like Germany and Eastern France. Things like a wine region’s average annual temperature, rainfall and humidity have more to do with the difference between Gevrey Chambertin and Willamette Valley Pinot. ![]() Where a grape grows - the climate associated with the grape’s geographical homestead - is ultimately what will determine what kind of wine that grape will turn into. (It’s also part of the reason why California‘s almond farmers are in deep, deep shit.) Good grapes make good wine, and good grapes come from their biologically matched climates. Even then, the apples you did manage to force to grow probably wouldn’t be super tasty, because they wouldn’t have developed in the environment they’re biologically built to grow in, which is why we’re all much more amped to blow our money on sweet Vermont-grown Honey Crisps over generic, mealy Chinese Red Delicious any day. You could fertilize the soil, irrigate the orchard, spray for bugs and molds that the trees wouldn’t be naturally suited to resist, shade the trees from the strength of the equatorial sun, and so on. If you took an apple tree out of Vermont and tried to grow it in Puerto Rico, you’d have to do a lot of work to get it to thrive. Mother Nature looked at apples and said, “You’re going to live in Vermont.” Apples said “Okey doke!” and got down adapting their root systems, leaf structure, color and more to make that possible. There’s a reason why apples don’t grow in Puerto Rico: they’re not built to grow there. What makes certain grapes grow well in some places and not others is the same thing that makes apples thrive in Vermont and not Puerto Rico, and something we rarely consider as it applies to our food: biological evolution. Like apples, grapes grow really well in certain places under certain conditions and not so well in other places. Grown en masse, they’re a crop, just like, say, apples. Grapes, mysterious and deified though they are, are a fruit. So what makes a grape thick skinned or thin skinned? What gives it higher sugar content? What makes the grape make the wine like it is? It all really boils down to one rarely discussed, not-so-sexy thing: climate. ![]() Ultimately, whatever makes up that grape will make up your wine. Like we said previously, there are many things that end up contributing to a wine’s ultimate expression - whether it’s light or full bodied, fruity, earthy, powerful or soft, and most of them live in the little, juicy miracle that is the grape.
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