Ever notice that when you pick up a travel brochure and most often than not the recommendation for the best honeymoon destinations is exploring wine country? Wine country tends to bring out the romance and cozy feeling in all of us. It is serene and wonderfully calming in some ways. Wine country is a region of North California that is famous for its’ wine growing business. There are as many as 200 wineries in this region alone and the few famous one are Napa Valley and Sonoma County. Wine country in reality does not only refer to the American continent, in fact wine country spans across Europe, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Spain is reputed to produce fresh and fruity flavoured wines rather than old fashioned woody flavours. Spain is quickly becoming of the forefront of Europe’s great wine nations due to their commitment to quality. The regions that are fast becoming favorites are Navarra, Toro, Tarragona, Valencia and Alicante. Spain is also considered the home of fortified wines like sherry. Sherry takes the name from the city of Jerez De la Frontera in Andalucía. Portugal’s reputation in wine history is founded by its success in fortified wines, port and Madeira.

Vinho Verde is one of Portugal’s better known wines in the international market. The name means ‘green wine’ but it doesn’t refer to the greenish tint in most whites but due to the fact that both red and white wine is released young for quick consumption.

German wines unfortunately have struggled to earn the respect of international wine lovers, yet they produce the very best of light wines. Famous wine regions in Germany include Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Rheingau, Baden and Wurttemberg.

In the past 30 years or so wines from the United Kingdom has developed dramatically. Volumes produced are still small compared to European countries even though they produced up to 25,000 hectoliters in 1992.
Beyond the borders of Europe is a handful of countries that have been making wine for centuries, where small amounts of them are slowly making their way into the export trade and slowly gaining international exposure.
In the North Africa region, namely Algeria, the vineyards are mostly concentrated on the Mediterranean coast in the northwest of the country.

History has it that it was once a large producer of wine that was sent to the former colonial power, France, where they were labeled as French wine.

Moving towards Asia, India is the sole producer of the sparkling wine of Maharashtra which was influenced by the famous champagne house Piper Heidsieck. China undoubtedly is awash with many different grape varieties and has many good vineyard land this has prompted some French and Australian wine makers to invest in producing wine in China and labeling it as their own. Meanwhile Japan have in recent years discovered a taste for fine wine and many investors are starting to invest in vineyards. Most vineyards in Japan are planted with north American hybrid grape varieties which gives some very peculiar flavours.

Finally we come to Australia and New Zealand. Australia has led the way with its Chardonnay, Cabernet and not forgetting Shiraz. If you’ve tasted Australian wines, you’ll agree that no European wine had ever tasted like Australian wines. This is because they capitalized on their fruitiness flavour which are so easy to understand. Consumers have come to see that Chardonnay meant Lemon and butter, Cabernet was plum and blackcurrant and Sauvignon was gooseberries and so on. By emphasizing on the fruit characteristics, people came to understand the essential factors that influenced the way wines taste.

New Zealand is where the global wine tour ends. In just 20 years or so, New Zealand winemakers have become the fastest growing wine country in the world. Sauvignon Blanc was what catapulted New Zealand into the world wine market with its sheer fruit powered dynamism. Sauvignon was then followed by Riesling with its classical steeliness that’s quite unlike the pungency of its Australian siblings.

Source: www.wine-blog.net.