WNLQ9 is a wine and spirit community and reference for Southeast Asia, starting in Thailand.
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California
More than 90 percent of the wine made in the United States is made in California.
The state's incredibly diverse yet largely beneficent climate and geography allow its wines to be made in a profusion of styles from dozens of different grape varieties, and while winemaking here has spanned four centuries, California is one of the most modern, technologically oriented wine regions in the world.
Its industry began with the Spanish explorers and missionaries who moved north from Mexico in the mid-1700s and secured Alta (Upper) California with a string of missions, each a day's journey from the next; wine was needed for the Catholic mass and for the friars themselves.
Key grapes
- Cabernet Sauvignon
- Chardonnay
- Merlot
- Petite Sirah
- Pinot Noir
- Syrah
- Zinfandel
- climate
- incredibly diverse yet largely beneficent; Mediterranean in the coastal valleys
- classification system
- AVA (American Viticultural Area) — unranked
- signature
- a profusion of styles from dozens of varieties; modern and technologically oriented
- share of us wine
- more than 90 percent
- history
- Franciscan mission vineyards from the mid-1700s planted with the 'mission' grape (listán prieto)
- style note
- diversity is the defining trait — no single structural benchmark is asserted for the state as a whole
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