CALIFORNIA - WINE IN 10

hi my name is konstantin baum i'm a master of wine a retailer and a consultant and this is my channel where we are thirsty for knowledge and wine this series is called wine in 10 where i look at a region or a grape variety and tell you everything you need to know within 10 minutes today i'm going to look at the first region outside of europe in the so-called new world this region has changed the dynamics for new world wines forever it is the golden state the home of lala land and the city the place where dreams are made and die california [Music] california is big it's the fourth biggest designation for wine after the countries italy france and spain so there's a lot to talk about and i really want to focus in this video on the things that make california what it is today the history the geography and the climate so let's start with the history california was first discovered in 8000 bc and many different tribes lived in the states for a long time until the european settlers arrived in 1542. back then wine production didn't really exist in the u.s and the native grape varieties british california and british giardiana weren't really usable for making proper wine in 1770 in the first british vinifera grape varieties were planted by the franciscan monks most of the wine making back then was in the south of california the most widely planted grape variety back then was called mission it is not widely planted anymore in california but it's still planted in chile under the name pais and in argentina under the name creola chica in 1846 california was still sparsely populated there were just a few thousand settlers and a hundred thousand native americans but things changed like this in 1848 when gold was discovered in california and lots of gold diggers arrived in the state these people were called the 49ers because the high point of this influx was 1849 and today the san francisco american football team is still called the san francisco 49ers north of california and san francisco as a city really benefited from this boom san francisco actually grew from 200 inhabitants in 1846 to 150 000 inhabitants in 1870 which is just completely insane 750 times the amount it was in 1846 this influx of people also meant that there was more consumption of alcoholic beverages especially in the north of california and this is why the production hubs moved from so-called the south of california to the north and places like sonoma and napa really established the wine industry back then things changed however in the 1890s when philosophers spread in california and devastated the vineyards and then prohibition arrived between 1920 and 1933 the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages was forbidden in the u.s and this obviously destroyed the wine industry and there were some wineries that managed to keep going because they were producing wine for medicinal purposes and wine for religious purposes and some wineries managed to sell their grapes to home brewers people who made wine at home when prohibition ended in the 1930s the wine industry took quite a long time to recover from this period but the 1970s and 1980s brought a real renaissance to californian wine making and there was one event in particular that changed the destiny of californian wine and it was the judgment of paris of 1976. so for the judgement of paris a british wine merchant living in paris invited the best tasters from france to do a competition between the best wines of california and the best ones of france and everyone kind of thought that the french wines would probably win but in the end at the end of this blind tasting the best white one was a californian one and the best red one was a californian wine and that was a big shock to all of the tasters who just rushed away because they didn't believe that this was true but there was fortunately a journalist there from time magazine who wrote a big article about this tasting and it became a massive success and people all around the world suddenly realized that californian wines might be pretty good so let's talk about the climate the climate varies quite a bit in the northwest in the city of eureka you have daytime temperatures that range from 12 to 18 degrees celsius in a year and you have around 1 000 millimeters of rainfall per annum which doesn't sound at all like california further inland in the southeast of california you have the death valley where daytime temperatures vary from 90 degrees celsius in winter to 47 degrees celsius in summer and you have less than 60 millimeters of rain per annum so this is a real desert and you definitely know why the place is called death valley the most important climatic influence in california is the pacific ocean in europe we have the atlantic ocean that brings warm water and warm air from the gulf of mexico to europe and therefore warms up this continent but in california it's the other way around the pacific brings cold water and cold air from the north pole and cools down the region quite a bit you can see that impact by comparing san francisco in california to lisbon and portugal both cities are roughly on the 38th degree latitude and both cities sit on the ocean but in san francisco you have an average summer temperature of roughly 20 degrees celsius whereas in lisbon you have an average daytime summer temperature of roughly 30 degrees celsius this is also why around san francisco great childhoodness and pinot noirs are being produced whereas around lisbon great wines from grape varieties that need warmer climates like alicante boucher and toriga national are being produced another really important climatic influence is the fork fog generally forms around bodies of water when cool air gets mixed up with warm air fog influences viticulture in two ways the first way is that it shields the vine and the grapes from direct sunlight in the morning and the second way is that it cools down the micro climate in the vineyard in areas where there's a lot of fog overall this means that grapes from foggy vineyards ripen more slowly and this means that a winemaker can produce a fresher and less alcoholic wine if they want to rain is another very important topic california overall gets quite a decent amount of rain per annum but it's very unevenly distributed during the year and between different counties drought or the lack of water is therefore a big issue in california especially during the last decades most vineyards in california are irrigated because there's no real other economic way of farming grapes in most parts of california but there's some exceptions and there's some really old vineyards that have never been irrigated and where the wines kind of learned and adapted in order to survive even without irrigation so this really feels like a day at school after history and climate sciences we are now talking about geography so the geography of california is quite complex california is the third biggest state after alaska and texas in california as a whole is bigger than italy or germany california also has a coastline that is 1300 kilometers long which is roughly like traveling from my hometown in germany barn barn to valencia in spain and this is just one state super important for the geography of california is the san andreas fault line which is where the north american plate rubs against the pacific plate they move very slowly roughly as fast as the fingernail grows but this activity mixes up a lot of different soil types in the region this tectonic movement is also the reason why you have tsunamis earthquakes and volcanic activity in california all of this knowledge about the history the geography and the climate in different regions in california has resulted in the ava the ava is basically the american version of the aoc and the first avas were created in the early 1980s today there are 138 different abas and some of them are really small and unknown and some of them might be too big to have a real clear identity like for example the sonoma coast ada but overall california has a huge diversity of different styles and different terroirs and i find it super intriguing to learn more about the different sites in california and to follow different wine makers who really dig into their soil into the dirt in order to understand what a specific side brings to their wine so thank you for watching if you like this video then please like it down here subscribe to my channel if you haven't done so in order to make sure that you're not missing any of my upcoming videos my question of the day is which region in california have you already traveled to please comment down here i hope i see you guys again soon until then stay thirsty [Music] you

Channel: Konstantin Baum - Master of Wine

Views: 24,004

Keywords: Grape variety, grape varieties, Wine School, Wine, Red Wine, White Wine, Konstantin Baum, Master of Wine, Wine Tasting, meinelese, Robert Parker, Somm, Sommelier, Wine making, Wine regions, Food, Wine Folly, Wine’s Cool, wine education, Sekt, Wein, Coravin, Rotwein, Weißwein, Weinverkostung, Essen, Rose, Wein machen, Wein verkosten, Vinifizieren, Wein Tipp, Weinschule, California, California Wine, Prohibition, California Terroir, California Climate, California Geography

Id: bSJ3u8KjhlA

Length: 9min 33sec (573 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 19 2020