Old World versus New
Does the wine world's big divide make sense any more? Plus: what I've been drinking this week
FOR the average wine drinker, the terms “Old World” and “New World” are simple enough reference points. France, Italy, Spain and the rest in Europe make classic wines with big variations between regions as well as vintages; consumers generally expect brighter, fruitier and more consistent wines from the warmer climes of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and South America. Yet a piece arguing for the Old World/New World divide last week by British wine educator Fintan Kerr set off a surprisingly tetchy row.
Kerr pointed to a recent decision by the US arm of the pompously named Court of Master Sommeliers (CMS) that it would no longer use the Old/New World terminology. This followed a similar announcement in 2022 by the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, the international organisation headquartered in London which oversees key wine education programmes and qualifications.
The US CMS cited, among other reasons, a need to “eliminate cultural bias” – though that may say more about the frantic repositioning of the organisation itself, still reeling from shocking allegations of racism and sexual violence levelled in 2020. Still, plenty of critics weighed in against Kerr online for defending the continued use of the Old/New World divide.
New World partisans have essentially three points. The first is that the labels aren’t accurate, since they miss out all sorts of places. Where do, say, Georgia and Lebanon fit in this over-simple schema?
There are also plenty of New World producers far older than many Old World ones: among Australia’s venerable names, for example, Yalumba was founded in 1849 and Penfolds in 1843. Meanwhile some of the newer parts of the Old World are quite New World in their behaviour: aside from the weather, some English wineries’ cellar-door sales operations feel more like California than they do the Languedoc.
The answer to this is that the Old/New World labels are simply a shorthand. I bow to no-one in my enthusiasm for Lebanese wines: just because I use the shorthand elsewhere, it doesn’t mean I’m ignoring them. The labels are used especially among wine people to group styles of wines – something that most of us do when blind tasting, as part of our process of elimination, if we’re not sure what something is. (Important caveat: blind tasting is basically a party game for wine geeks.)
The second criticism echoes the CMS rationale for rejecting New/Old World language: that it reflects a relationship between Europe and places that Europeans colonised. “New World” is thus a term inscribed with politics: a neutral-sounding label that masks the pillaging of swathes of the world by European imperialists – and the elimination or eviction of black and brown indigenous peoples by white settlers.
Appalling though European colonialism was, however, we should be clear that the overwhelmingly white-European wine industries of the New World are ultimately part of the colonisers’ project, not representatives of the colonised.
It’s a bit different in the creole societies of Latin America, and the US West coast is complicated too, at least in places first colonised by Spanish missionaries. But for the white Australian descendants of the British interlopers who pitched up on Aboriginal land a couple of hundred years ago to act like they’re somehow discriminated against today is absurd.
And judging by the social media reaction to Kerr’s piece, most of the anger did come from Australians. His article appeared in a South African online magazine; despite the grim inequalities of South African society, that country has made serious efforts to reckon with the apartheid inheritance. But Australian voters decisively rejected last autumn’s referendum on a constitutional change to give more representation to indigenous peoples: it appears many have trouble facing up to the country’s white supremacist roots (just as many white Brits do in admitting the crimes of empire.)
The third and most serious criticism of the Old/New World classification, however, is about the wine in your glass.
The clearest difference between Old and New World wines is – or was – climate. Most of Europe’s great vineyards are closer to the 50° northern latitude limit of where the Vitis vinifera vine is cultivable; most New World vines grow at below 40° South or North. At least until the advent of global warming, places such as Burgundy and the Rhineland were at the margins of where grapes would ripen. There was never any such problem in the Barossa Valley or Sonoma – which is why their wines were a burst of sunshine for many British drinkers when they arrived here in the 1980s.
Climate change is changing that fundamentally. I’ve written recently about how hotter weather is bringing riper grapes and higher alcohol levels to many European wines. At the weekend I drank a chunky red Beaumes de Venise at 15 per cent alcohol and a Calabrian red at 15.5 per cent. Conversely, cool-climate regions in the New World are now producing more restrained, subtle wines that often taste at least half way to their Old World equivalents in style.
One of the most interesting events I’ve attended in the past six months was a comparative New Zealand and Oregon tasting led by Bree Stock MW and Peter McCombie MW: both countries make wines at around 45°, South and North, the latter the same latitude as Bordeaux or the Rhône. Meanwhile the annual Canadian tasting, in the grand environs of Canada House on Trafalgar Square, is unmissable for its cool-climate chardonnay and Burgundian-style pinot noirs.
So does the blurring of wine’s climate zones mean the Old World/New World divide is disappearing anyway? I don’t think so. Local winemaking traditions, terroirs and grapes in Europe mean that those burly Rhône and southern Italian reds I drank last weekend still tasted unmistakeably of where they were from – never mind that they packed a ripe punch like a big Barossa Shiraz.
Local variety is key: the New World will never have the patchwork of regional wine and food histories, the hundreds of indigenous grapes boasted by places like Italy and Greece, and the endless permutations created by blending grapes, less common in New World industries dominated by single-varietal bottlings. Producers also tend to be a lot smaller in Europe than in Australia or South America, further complicating the kaleidoscope.
I confess to getting a bit bored at the big Wine Australia tasting in London a couple of months ago – not least because around 90 per cent of Australian red wine plantings (2023) are accounted for by just four French grapes – Shiraz (46 per cent), Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Pinot Noir. It’s not that they’re bad wines: some of them are very good. I just don’t find many that interesting.
For me, one of the biggest joys of wine is its sheer variety. Partly it comes down to terroir, the hard-to-pin-down French term meaning where a wine is from in terms of soil, micro-climate and aspect. And in that respect, there is endless variety in the New World – if producers exploit it.
For example in Argentina’s Uco Valley, in Mendoza, producers are now exploring an exciting range of different terroirs. Last week I tasted wines from Domaine Bousquet, from the Uco’s Gualtallary sub-region: two brilliant Malbecs produced from their Eva Estate, on neighbouring parcels of vines, tasted markedly different.
There’s a world of wine to explore: it doesn’t matter if we use “New World” and “Old World” as a shorthand for styles. Just as long as the wine isn’t boring.
What I’ve been drinking this week
The Society’s Exhibition Santorini Assyrtiko, 2021 – crisp, light, citrussy with a mineral, saline edge – a classic example of Santorini’s famous white grape. Pretty good value for the quality, given how much Santorini Assyrtiko prices have climbed in recent years (The Wine Society, £17.50.)
Mandrarossa Frappato 2022, IGT Terre Siciliane – I was reminded how enjoyable Frappato can be drinking this with pasta at Franzina Trattoria, south London’s best Sicilian restaurant. It’s Sicily’s lightest red, bursting with berry fruit, served slightly chilled: not serious, just fun (Tannico, Vino.com and elsewhere, from £13.48; in Franzina Trattoria, £31.)
Château de Diusse 2019, Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh – from one of south-western France’s most satisfyingly obscure appellations, this is a label from the excellent Plaimont co-operative in Saint-Mont. Pacherenc is the white wine of Madiran, usually dry though its Gros Manseng and Petit Manseng grapes make a sweet wine when harvested late. Like this one: luscious sweetness nicely underpinned by crisp acidity (House of Townend, Direct Wine Shipments, £10.99/50cl.)
Transparency declaration: I attended all the tastings mentioned in the main piece as a media guest. The Pacherenc was a free sample.
Really interesting. Thank you!
Thanks for writing this. I think I am too old to care about not using the terms, I love them and think they have a place in wine. I will just ignore the CMS and WSET.