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Winery
Hitching Post
Region: California
California as a wine producing region has grown in size and importance considerably over the past couple of centuries, and today is the proud producer of more than ninety percent of the United States' wines. Indeed, if California was a country, it would be the fourth largest producer of wine in the world, with a vast range of vineyards covering almost half a million acres. The secret to California's success as a wine region has a lot to do with the high quality of its soils, and the fact that it has an extensive Pacific coastline which perfectly tempers the blazing sunshine it experiences all year round. The winds coming off the ocean cool the vines, and the natural valleys and mountainsides which make up most of the state's wine regions make for ideal areas in which to cultivate a variety of high quality grapes.
Country: United States
Whilst there are several strains of native grape varietals in the United States, it was the introduction of the European species which prompted the country to begin producing wines on a large scale. Over the past few centuries, experimentation and cross-breeding has produced great successes in regards to the quality and suitability of the fruit grown in states such as California, Oregon, Washington and New York, and the past few decades have seen New World wines from the United States reach much higher standards. Arguably the finest United States wines have always come out of California, where the climate and terrroir is most suitable for fine wine production. The masterful blending of classic grape varietals such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, amongst others including Syrah and Chardonnay, have had world beating results in recent years, prompting many to suggest that there has never been a better time for buying and drinking United States wines.
Appellation: Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara is often overlooked as a wine region, however, the quality of the producing coming out of this coastal county cannot be ignored – many of the best New World red wines hail from Santa Barbara, and the wineries of the region are consistently impressing with their flair for experimentation. For over a hundred years, Santa Barbara has been using the blazing Californian sunshine and cooling Pacific Ocean breezes to produce classic French grape varietals of stunning quality and distinction, leading many people to refer to the county as the 'Californian Provence'. Indeed, the terroir of Santa Barbara is not so dissimilar to that of many great French wine regions, and this may go some way to explain why the red and white wines which are produced there pack in so many interesting and enticing features.