Articolo disponibile anche in: Italian

Not many people know this, but many excellent wines are produced today in the US. We’re used to reading about top-quality Italian wines, that get exported worldwide, including to America.

Think about the Chianti Classico wine, which is produced in Tuscany and is famous all over the world.

Italy is in fact the fifth country in the world in terms of wine exports, and the third market in terms of consumption. The US consumes more wine than any other place in the world, with 30 million hectolitres per year, which represents around 25% of the total.

And that is why the US cannot rely solely on imports, from Italy and elsewhere, and are now producing some excellent wines.

Today the US is the fourth largest country for internal wine production after Italy, France and Spain. And if American wine is not considered very ‘fashionable’ on our continent, outside of Europe it’s seen as a very good product. In Italy we don’t have a high opinion of wines produced in America; one thinks of them as caricatures of Italian wine, which is appreciated all over the globe for its quality.

American wines are made with French grape varieties, using small oak barrels. This relatively recent trend of winemaking is very popular in California, which is the hot spot for wine production in the US.

Thanks to its climate, perfect for growing vines, California has the greatest numbers of vineyards. And the wines produced in these territories are quality products sold all over the world.

Wine is another good reason to visit California, one of America’s most well-travelled states, choosing one of the direct flights (Alitalia from Rome or the low cost flights by Norwegian air) and benefitting from the ESTA Travel Authorisation for brief period stays.

Locally produced wines could indeed become another tourist attraction for the States, especially for California.

A few lines about wines produced in America: the reds have a rather high alcohol content and are soft, full-bodied, and aromatic. The production is ‘forced’, meaning that in the US the winemakers don’t grow their own indigenous grapes, as happens in Europe, but grapes that come from specially created structures.

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