American wine

American wine has been produced for over 300 years. Today, wine production is performed in all fifty states, with California leading the way in wine production followed by Washington State, Oregon and New York.

The United States is the fourth largest wine producing country in the world after France, Italy, and Spain. The production in the U.S. State of California alone is more than double of the production of the entire country of Australia.

The North American continent is home to several native species of grape, including Vitis labrusca, Vitis riparia, Vitis rotundifolia, Vitis vulpina, and Vitis amurensis, but it was the introduction of the

European Vitis vinifera by European settlers that led to the growth of the wine making industry. With more than 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km2) under vine, the United States is the fifth most planted country in the world after France, Italy, Spain and Turkey.

The first Europeans to explore North America called it Vinland because of the profusion of grape vines they found. The earliest wine made in what is now the United States was from the Scuppernong grapes by French Huguenot settlers at a settlement near Jacksonville, Florida between 1562 and 1564.

In the early American colonies of Virginia and the Carolinas, wine making was an official goal laid out in their founding charters. However, settlers would later discover that the wine made from the various native grapes had flavors which were unfamiliar and which they did not like.

This led to repeated efforts to grow familiar Vitis vinifera varieties beginning with the Virginia Company exporting of French vinifera vines with French vignerons to Virginia in 1619.

These early plantings were met with failure as native pest and vine disease ravaged the vineyards. In 1683, William Penn planted a vineyard of French vinifera in Pennsylvania that may have interbred with a native Vitis labrusca vine to create the hybrid grape Alexander.

One of the first commercial wineries in the United States was founded in Indiana in 1806 with production of wine made from the Alexander grape. Today French-American hybrid grapes are the staples of wine production on the East Coast of the United States.



Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wine


See Also: gifts australia, flowers melboure, flowers sydney, Floral