30 Wine Regions To Explore Around the World (PHOTOS)

Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes are generally picked first, according to About Food.  Meanwhile ice wine harvests, such as for the German Eiswein occur only when the first frost has touched the grapes. This is much later, usually in December, or even sometimes as late as January or February, according to WineMag.com.

Harvest season is one of the best times to visit the world’s wine regions because the wineries are bustling with activity and nearby towns are celebrating. In the Bordeaux region of France, the locals mark the start of the “vendanges” (harvest) in the town of St. Emilion by holding a two-day ceremony called “la Jurade” featuring men and women dressed in red robes and impressive fireworks displays. 

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So where are the best wine regions to visit?  “Optimal weather in a wine-growing region includes ample sunshine, a pronounced hot-dry season, and mild winters with relatively few days below freezing,” says Jonathan Erdman, senior meteorologist for weather.com. “In general, wine-growing regions [like] California, France, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and South African feature sunshine and hot periods, for at least part of the summer, to allow the flavor and alcohol content of the grapes to rise.”

To achieve the ideal conditions, many wine-growing regions are situated in river valleys, not far from an ocean or the sea, while others are planted on the slopes of a hillside, explains Erdman, to avoid the coldest air pooling in the valley floor.  For example, the wine estates of the Ribeira Sacra region of Spain grow their grapes on bancales (terraces) perched on precarious canyon slopes above the River Sil. Harvested grapes have to be transported down to the river in baskets suspended on a wire.

Warm temperatures have sometimes been very good for wine. “Interestingly, a summer of drought and sweltering temperatures can yield a spectacular vintage,” says weather.com meteorologist Erdman. Warmer temperatures have been good for wine, lengthening the growing seasons and producing wine with stronger, bolder flavors, but this could change as the world warms, according to VICE News. Climate change could make it more difficult and expensive to grow wine in regions like Champagne in France and parts of Australia.

“Those [areas] at the greatest risk are those that are already very warm and dry, where warming and drying will make crop production challenging,” says Gregory Jones, a research climatologist at Southern Oregon University who studies the relationship between weather and wine. Inland regions are more likely to be affected than coastal ones, he explains, and the Northern Hemisphere is likely to see more changes than the Southern. New regions – once too cold to grow grapes – will become more conducive to wine production, such as China, which has emerged as a top producer of wine already in recent years. 

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So from California to Italy, Chile to Australia, here is a round-up of some of the best and most exciting wine regions to taste your way around the world today. Not only do these places offer great diversity in wonderful wines – from sparklings to rich reds to sweet desert wines – but they also offer stunning landscapes and excellent cuisines that always accompany the wines.

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