Published in The Telegraph, September 2019
With its Mediterranean climate and more than 200 days of sunshine each year, California is the greenhouse of the US, where fruits and vegetables grow to sumptuous perfection – including wine grapes. Home to more than 80 per cent of the United States’ wine production, California’s contribution is bigger than that of most countries and with a dizzying 3,900 wineries to explore, you would need a lifetime to visit them all.
The state’s dramatic coastline, stretching some 840 miles from Oregon to Mexico, is only one ingredient in California’s varied wine landscape. Mountain ranges, lakes and bays, volcanoes and dry desert plains combine to offer myriad climatic and geological influences. As a result there is a wealth of wine styles there so diverse that more than 100 American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) have been established to differentiate the unique properties of each wine region…
