Winemeister

Until recently not well known in the US or Europe, Argentina is the largest wine producer in the southern hemisphere. It's diverse mix of microclimates makes for an equally interesting mix of wines and flavors. Argentina is best known for the strongly flavored red Malbec, but has plenty of other wines in its various regions.

Of the three top wine producing countries (France  and Italy  being the other two), Spain has the lowest production in hl per year, but the highest amount of area under vines (see statistics  page). Its low productivity is mostly caused by the extreme conditions in most of Spain's wine growing regions. Central Spain is notorious for its water problems and only some of the northern regions get sufficient amounts of water to guarantee stable yields.

Italy is next to France the world's largest producer of wine. It contributes about 20 percent of the world's production. In addition to their sizable domestic market, Italian wines command the largest share of foreign wines in the [United States], the most important export market for Italy. Because of its geography, Italy has wine growing regions almost in the entire country - the southern latitude along with the tempering influence of the Mediterranean sea and the mountains and foothills provide an almost ideal geography for growing wine.

Known best for some ill-famed sugar-laced [Mosel] wines, Germany is still fighting a bit of an uphill battle in the United States to regain a reputation as a source of fine wine. However, if you care to look closely, you'll see that there are many diverse winemaking regions throughout the country and in most of them it is quite easy to find a good solid bottle of white wine.

Possibly the world's most famous region for growing red wine, Bordeaux takes its name from the largest city in the area. It is located on the French Atlantic coast just north of the Pyrenee mountains and the border to Spain. The wine growing region known as Bordeaux straddles two departments - the Gironde and the Dordogne. It's wine growing region is located along the Gironde, Dordogne and Garonne rivers in the south-western portion of France.

Bordeaux contains a total of 36 officially named growing regions:

Medoc 

French wines are usually known by a combination of their regional names of origin like Bordeaux or "Cote du Rhone", territory names controlled by the [INAO] like "[St. Emilion]", "[Medoc]" or "[Paulliac]". Further identifications found on the label are the names of the vineyard or producer, the vintage and the classification. See [How To Read a French Label] for details.

Wine is usually known primarily under either the region the grapes were grown in (names like [Napa Valley], Bordeaux or Valpolicella) or the type of grape used to make the wine (as in [Chardonnay], [Merlot] or [Malbec]). As a rule of thumb, [Europe] tends to emphasize area of origin and use the names of the regions as the marketing names. This is reinforced by the European Union's labeling laws. Many new world ([America], [Australia], [South Africa]) wine makers tend to use the type of grape as the main marketing distinction next to the geographical one, thus making it a "Californian Chardonnay" or "Chilean Sauvignon Blanc" rather than a "Chateau Peby de Faugeres from the AOC St. Emilion". This page gives a quick overview for the wine growing countries grouped by major world region. For each country, there is a separate page with information about the wine grown there and its known regions.