Europe is known for excellent wine, with dozens of award-winning vineyards. Photo / Unsplash
Europe is known for excellent wine, with dozens of award-winning vineyards. Photo / Unsplash
France, Italy, and Spain form the epicentre of Europe’s great winemaking traditions, and they offer a remarkable diversity of styles to enjoy, writes Susan Gough Henly
You could spend a lifetime exploring the wine regions of Europe, which are without a doubt the world’s greatest. There’s really no better way to delve into the history and geography – indeed the very heart and soul of the continent. And wine always goes better with food. It certainly doesn’t hurt that these are also wonderful gourmet destinations as well.
FRANCE: L’art de vivre
Here are five standouts among the 17 main wine regions of France.
Bordeaux: Located in the southwest and dubbed the wine capital of the world, Bordeaux is France’s largest wine region, which surrounds the beautiful city of Bordeaux, the world’s largest Unesco-listed urban area. This is where you’ll find exquisite cabernet sauvignon/merlot red blends in the castle-dotted Medoc region on the left bank of the Gironde Estuary and in Pomerol and the pretty hill region of Saint-Emilion on the right bank as well as the famed Sauternes sweet white wines made from late-harvest botrytis semillon, sauvignon blanc and muscadelle. Blended white and red wines are also made in Graves and Entre Deux Mers.
Burgundy: Over in eastern France, Burgundy runs along the slopes of a mountain range between Dijon and Lyon with its most famous sub-regions being the Cote de Nuits and Cote de Beaune, Chablis and Macon. Here you’ll find tiny parcels of land cultivated with some of the world’s finest pinot noir and chardonnay grapes.
Champagne: Northeast of Paris lies the famed Champagne region encircling the historic towns of Reims and Epernay, home to the most famous sparkling wine on earth, which is made predominantly from chardonnay and pinot noir grape varieties.
Loire: Southeast of Paris, the undulating Loire wine region stretches along a 500km landscape between Sancerre and Nantes and offers a mind-blowing array of grape varieties and wine styles interspersed with grand chateaux and gorgeous gardens. You’ll discover sauvignon blanc in Sancerre, chenin blanc in Vouvray, romorantin in Cour-Cheverny, cabernet franc in Chinon and pinot noir and gamay as you move east.
Cotes du Rhone: Stretching from Lyon to the Rhone delta, the Cotes du Rhone is a mainly red wine growing region focusing on grenache, syrah and mourvedre blends that do well under the hardy Provencal sun. Some of its most iconic sub-regions include Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas, Côte-Rotie and Hermitage.
Located in the southeast of France, the Cotes du Rhone region primarily focuses on red wine production, with grenache, syrah, and mourvedre being key grape varieties. Photo / 123rf
ITALY: La Dolce Vita
Here are four must-visits among the 20 wine regions of Italy.
Piedmont: Located in northwest Italy between the Alps and the Ligurian coast, Piedmont is one of Europe’s most beautiful winemaking areas with hilltop castles overlooking fog-shrouded valleys, vineyards tiered down hillsides and ancient chestnut forests framing historic villages. This is nebbiolo country, the black grape that produces the region’s famous barolo and barbaresco wines. Barbera and dolcetto are two other red varieties while arneis and cortese make white wines. Piedmont is also famous for its truffles.
Tuscany: Stretching along the Ligurian coast, the wine region of Tuscany is dotted across rolling hills surrounding the city of Florence. Some of its most famous sub-regions include Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino and Montepulciano. Sangiovese is the key red grape variety, however, in recent years. Super Tuscan wines are being made with sangiovese often blended with international varieties such as cabernet sauvignon and syrah.
Veneto: In northeast Italy, the Veneto wine region stretches from the Dolomite Mountains to the Adriatic Sea. This is sparkling prosecco country and it’s also the home of soave wine, made from the white garganega variety. There’s even been a revival of the dorona white grape variety on Mazzorbo Island in the Venetian lagoon. The Indigenous corvina and rondinella are the basis of the red wines of valpolicella and amarone, the latter made from air-dried resonated grapes.
Sicily: It is not only the largest island in the Mediterranean but also the largest wine growing region in Italy. Sicily is home to more than 65 indigenous grape varieties. The southeast of the island is famous for its beaches, Greek temples and medium-bodied red wines made from nero d’avola and frappato. The west is home to marsala fortified wine, while on the volcanic soils around Mount Etna in the northeast, red and white wines are made with nerello, mascalese and carricante.
Piedmont, in Northwest Italy, features picturesque hilltop castles overlooking fog-shrouded valleys and ancient chestnut forests. Photo / 123rf
SPAIN: La Buena Vida
There are a whopping 69 diverse wine regions in Spain. Here are four of the most interesting to visit.
Rioja: Located along the Ebro River in north central Spain (two hours from Bilbao), Rioja is Spain’s most famous wine region and the home of big red wines with high tannins made from the tempranillo grape.
Galicia: The green coastal region of Galicia in northwest Spain with its fjord-like river estuaries carving through lush hillsides, is the home of crisp acidic albarino white wines in the Rias Baixas sub-region along the coast, full-bodied godello white wines in Valdeorras and aromatic red wines made with mencia grapes grown on vertiginous terraces above river gorges in Ribeira Sacra. This is also the seafood capital of Spain.
Jerez: In the province of Andalusia on the southwestern tip of Spain, Jerez is home to sherry, a fortified wine made from the palomino white grape variety grown on stark white albariza soil on a triangle of land between the towns of Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlucar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa Maria. This is the place to sample bone-dry pale fino and manzanilla sherry and dark oak-aged amontillado and oloroso in white-washed bodegas.
Catalonia: Stretching along the northern Mediterranean coast, Catalonia is home to Barcelona and Girona, seaside resorts and fabulous gastronomy. It’s also a multi-faceted wine growing region with several highlights. Check out the Penedès sub-region, renowned for sparkling cava made from macabeo, zarel-lo and parellada grape varieties, as well as the Priorat sub-region planted with carinena and grenache varieties that make dense, multi-layered red wines.
Galicia, situated in Northwest Spain, is renowned for its fjord-like river estuaries and lush hillsides. Photo / 123rf
OTHER EUROPEAN GEMS
There are many more wine regions to visit elsewhere in Europe.
Explore the steeply terraced vineyards of the Duoro Valley in Portugal, renowned for port; the riesling vineyards of Mosel and Rhineland Pfalz in Germany; the Tokaj-Jegyalja region of Hungary, home to the world’s first ‘noble rot’ botrytis wines such as tokay; the Lavaux terraced vineyards between Lausanne and Montreux in Switzerland with views across Lake Geneva to the Alps; and finally the vineyards on the Greek island of Santorini where vines are wound into low crown-like baskets to protect the grapes from strong winds and allow them to soak up dew to make crisp white assyrtiko wines and vinsanto dessert wines.
Vineyard hills in the river Douro Valley, Portugal. Photo / 123rf
