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California wine maps4/25/2023 And I wanted to develop some kind of image that might lay out routes to help others as well. I was being very systematic, going east to west in the Loire, north to south in Burgundy and the Rhone, back again to Languedoc, Provence, etc. I was trying to teach myself French wines without taking a trip to France, to systematically get to know each wine region, keeping my tasting notes on a Google map I had made. What led you to create the first of your wine maps? The former reflects the situation here, the latter simply says, “I wish I were in France.” I actually love the bizarre field blends that are made in California much more than the expertly made caricature of Chablis from the hippest California producer. Graves and Cornas, or Hermitage) rather than representations of their actual sites. These seemingly different styles of wine actually share something: they are representations of far-away places (e.g. I have equal disdain for oaky, overblown California cabernet as I do for Sonoma winemakers who make whole-cluster caricatures of wines from the Rhône. I found her argument convincing, and that further moved me away from any consideration of points.īombast and caricature. I loved Alice Feiring’s first book on natural wine, where she critiques the point system and sees it as the cause of homogenization in wine production. Today, I have a better sense of my palate, so I ignore them. I will admit that when I first explored wine, I bought wines based on points. The vintage of this wine – 2009 – was quite warm, so it was also a good way to transition from my New World palate to an Old World one.Īre you a fan of the Robert Parker system of ranking wines? ![]() Not only did I taste a great wine, but I also thought I tasted Marcel’s ideas about wine. I was always interested in wine, but I became obsessed after drinking a Morgon by Marcel Lapierre. In downtown Richmond, Virginia – a great city. A similarly modeled site,, focuses on Sonoma County wine country.© David Gissen De Long | L-R: David Gissen the Metro Wine Map of France It’s a bit slow and clumsy to move between pages and you’ll need some patience to navigate and wait for a new page load, but may be useful for initial wine-themed trip planning. You can also hone your search through regional filters that cover most wine-producing regions of the world and even down to the appellation level. A combination of hovering over the icon and zooming in will activate a popup info box with the name and address of the site. offers a view of wineries and wine bars, identified by icons on a map. The site is a little rudimentary and confusing to navigate-almost like he started something cool then abandoned it when technology got more sophisticated, but it’s a fun poke around with a glass of wine. Master sommelier Fernando Betata hosts a series of interactive maps on his site, some of which are Google Earth tours of regions (Germany, Burgundy’s Cote de Nuits, Madeira and Santorini) and others that use Google Earth-type technology to zoom in and out and offer popups with appellation-specific information such as notable vineyards, area size, soil, stylistic notes. Honing in on a specific AVA brings up options to see the legislation that designated the AVA (Federal Register and other dockets), and what’s cool about that is you can see all the rigorous requirements attached to creating an AVA-distinguishing soil and geology features, climate, elevation, etc. The “Add to my AVA” feature lets you create a reference library. The site contains good, if basic (just the facts, ma’am!), information about existing and proposed AVA boundaries. Not surprisingly, the AVA Map Explorer is a bit of a visual bore, but you can change the base maps to street views, topo maps or satellite. Surprisingly, The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau hosts a pretty decent interactive map of American Viticultural Areas. ![]() ![]() Basic but accurate information on American Viticultural Areas from the gov.
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