Berger: Wine gets complicated as industry grows

Three decades ago, I wrote a column about how complicated wine was becoming.

In 1986, wine imports to the United States were growing so fast that one bottle of every four sold in the United States came from another country.

So imagine what it must be like today, as wine imports have grown to more than one bottle in three, the number of American wineries has grown rapidly, and wineries all over the United States are creating new looks to old favorites.

The examples are so many it’s hard to know where to start.

French wines once were largely regional and based on specific varieties, with Bordeaux and Burgundy leading the pack. Today we are inundated with a lot of blended whites and reds, many of them from the Rhone Valley, as well as from regions of France that few people have ever heard of.

Italy, with its many hundreds of grape varieties, now offers us not only chianti, barolo, and pinot grigio, but the new darling of Italy, sparkling prosecco. And collectors still love their brunellos. Now Sicily, Umbria, the Veneto, and 20 other locales in Italy are offering us bargains, albeit obscure ones.

Thirty years ago we had virtually no wines from Austria, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, and just the rudimentary first bottles from politically unstable Chile. Today we have exciting wines from all those countries. New Zealand in particular has become a bit of a superstar with many whites and reds gaining acclaim.

Now look at the changes in the U.S. wine business.

Oregon and Washington were making wines in the 1980s, sure, but both were still in relative startup mode. Washington may have been ahead in terms of overall quality then, but Oregon was making great strides with its pinot noir. Today, Oregon has won acclaim for pinot noir, but has added sterling examples of pinot gris, riesling, and pinot blanc. And Washington’s recent success with merlot and syrah has added luster to the state’s cabernet sauvignon image.

At the same time, we have seen a revolution in excellent wines from New York, Virginia, Michigan, Texas, and even Ohio, Pennsylvania and, most recently, Idaho. And now new grape varieties from upstate New York and even Minnesota are enticing new consumers.

California has long been the U.S. leader in volume and quality. But whereas 30 years ago pinot noir was an afterthought to the star, cabernet sauvignon, today it’s a star on its own, a decade after a film offered a paean to the grape.

And although there are no new grapes that are begging for our attention, new styles of wine are hitting store shelves daily.

Once cabernet sauvignon was claret, a medium-bodied red wine that offered age-worthy reds with food a mandatory match-up. Today most cabs are bigger, richer, aimed at sipping and not aging, and are flavored with oak, some actually from barrels.

Sauvignon blanc three decades ago was a grape that Robert Mondavi was still trying to rescue from the obscurity file. Partly due to the excitement of the broad acceptance of New Zealand-styled SBs, this grape is the new headliner in America. And where once it was not aged in oak, today many oak-y versions are commanding high prices.

Rosé wines still don’t make as much of an impact with Americans, but more and more wineries are making them, and drier ones, to offer an alternative to reds and whites.

Dry red wines remain important, but many wineries are now testing the viability of sweeter reds. Some even state boldly on their front labels that the wines are a bit sweet - and some more than a bit!

Chardonnay aged in oak barrels remains the most popular wine in this country, accounting for some 20 percent of all wine sales. But a portion of that segment today is made without any oak. The so-called un-oaked chardonnays (or oak-free, or nude, or stainless steel) now account for a substantial segment of the chardonnay market.

Most wines once were made exclusively from grapes. But in the last few years, as Millennial consumers sought more distinctiveness in their beverages, some took a side path toward flavored wines, with citrus and tropical fruits used as the major flavoring elements. And many large wineries accommodated them with a wild array of new flavored wines.

Last week, I saw an “apple wine” that was infused with maple flavor, walnuts and cream. Any relationship to wine was purely in name only. It tasted like a milkshake from New England. So yes, wine is more complicated than ever before, but isn’t that the fun of it, the discovery of many new aroma and taste treats?

Wine of the Week: 2014 Voss Sauvignon Blanc, Napa Valley ($22) -- The dramatic New Zealand SB aroma of lime, tropical fruit (kiwi!) and grass is here tamed down a bit to display a little more of the passionfruit and the wine’s dry entry is a delight with spicy prawns. Handsome and food-oriented

Dan Berger lives in Sonoma County, where he publishes “Vintage Experiences,” a weekly wine newsletter. Write to him at winenut@gmail.com.