1. California wine valley tours
California is known throughout the world as a location for some of the best wines
currently available for sale. This is really saying something when you take into
account how widely produced good wine is. Many countries in Europe produce
excellent wine, as do more than one in South America. South Africa is a location for
some quite delicious varieties, while Australia has shown a long-running ability to
remain around the top of wine lists no matter where you travel. The fact, therefore,
that California wine valley tours are a popular pursuit not just for wine lovers within
the US, but for people from the very locations mentioned above, shows just how
seriously the state is taken as a wine-producing region.
California is home to some of the most celebrated producers of wine currently selling
their product worldwide. Ernest and Julio Gallo, a pair of names that even wine
skeptics would immediately identify with good wine, have produced much of their
wine from this very part of the world. In fact, if California was a separate country, it
would be the country with the fourth-largest wine production in the world. It produces
a third as much wine again as Australia, itself a major producer of the grapes that go
into making great wines. It does not just produce quantity however, as was proved by
an event in 1976 known as the Judgment of Paris, when British wine merchant Steven
Spurrier invited several Californian wine producers to participate in a tasting event in
Paris.
The idea behind the event was to compare the best wines of the Californian region
with the best of French. Under rigorously-controlled blind tasting conditions, the
Californian wines proved to be vastly more popular than the French brands. Since
then the respect which had previously escaped the Californian industry has been
slowly dissipating, and anyone who pays attention to the reputations of global wine
producers knows that a glass of something from California can make for a very
pleasant drink. It is partly down to the cosmopolitan, layered history of the state –
with no small influence from Spanish and Italian winemakers being prevalent in grape
varieties used – and partly to the quality of the soil and the climatic conditions in
California that wine drinkers think so fondly of many Californian labels.
So popular now is Californian wine – not just within the US, but far and wide – that
Californian wine tours are big business. There are so many options available, even
from a cursory glance on the Internet, that it really is up to you which you choose to
go on. If you are in a position to keep going back, you can even “do the region” if you
like, giving yourself some idea as to what your favorite Californian wine is, and
gaining a broad appreciation of just what an achingly beautiful state California can be
into the bargain. One thing is for sure – a Californian wine tour is just the thing for
anyone who wants to learn about the best of American wine production old and new.
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