Winophilia

Wine lovers often refer to wines as “Old World” or “New World” in style, sometimes without even being able to explain what they mean. What do these two terms mean to you? What are the characteristics that would make YOU call a wine New World or Old World?”

Rupert Symington, Symington Family Estates (Portugal). To me, “Old World” evokes leaner, more elegant wines with distinct flavours of their respective terroirs even within the same region, also wines that tend to carry a bit more seasoned barrel or bottle age. “New World” to me evokes fuller-bodied, fruit-forward, frequently varietally focused wines which are homogeneous within their region, showing freshness and little aging character, and often a touch of new oak.

Bob Betz, Betz Family Winery (Washington). These terms provide me with a sense of character of the wine. Old World, regardless of the wine’s origin, conjures up an image of a wine where structure matches or dominates the fruit, while New World indicates a force of fruit, where structure takes a back seat.

For me Old World wines traditionally exhibit a more sinewy, punctuated palate impression, where acid and phenolics combine to rouse the palate; alcohol is typically lower than New World wines, where additional heat accumulation during the growing season raises the sugar level.

Along with the higher sugar, there’s also a sense of ripeness and fruit dominance to New World wines. Along with the plush mouthfeel I get more fruit, perhaps more intensity of fruit, and a mouthfilling suppleness.

But the world is changing. New areas in both the Old and New Worlds, changing vineyard practices, cellar protocol and stylistic preferences lead growers and winemakers to close the gap between the hemispheres. I could lament the “internationalization” of wine character, but in the end I find immense pleasure in both styles.

Mounir Saouma, Lucien Le Moine (France). For me, who did some work in both “worlds” without pretending to be an expert on either, I may say that we “know more” about Old World wines today because it’s old, and we have more experience. It’s not so difficult to identify a Bonnes-Mares, a Cannubi Boschis, a Margaux, a Rioja or a riesling from the Saar: an Old World wine has a characteristic of a “place” and varietal knowledge; New World wines are still on the varietal level of cabernet from Napa Valley, syrah from Barossa, sauvignon blanc from New Zealand, pinot noir from Oregon, Carmenere from Maipo, and so on, usually covering a larger geophaphic area.

Anyway, things are a bit confused today in terms of style: when you make a superripe pinot noir in Bourgogne and you correct the acidity, or when you bottle a Chassagne early—for me this is a bit New World in style. An if a producer of Cabernet in Napa is picking less “hot” or high-alcohol grapes and making “fine work,” the wine can be in more of an Old World style. For me, the MAJOR difference here is “time and evolution” in the glass. In my experience, when you put Puligny and good California chardonnay side by side, the California wine will be the star for the first 30 minutes. The Puligny will be “closed.” But then when the Puligny starts showing minerality and freshness, the California wine will be going down, becoming colder and less fresh. And the same is true for a Margaux tasting next to a Napa cab. More and more people do this comparison but unfortunately they don’t retaste the wines two hours later to see this difference .

Philippe Cambie, consulting enologist (France). As a consulting enologist working in southern France and northern Spain (Cataluña), I can only give an “Old World” point of view. I only want to work with varieties that are part of my heritage and culture. Wine is more than a beverage or something you just consume, it is part of our tradition and transmits our history and our culinary culture to future generations.

For those reasons, innovations and excessive manipulations can be opposed to the concept of appellations d’origine, in which nature more than man is considered to be responsible for the quality of the wines. Great wines start with great grapes and that is why we don’t have winemakers, we have vignerons.

Personally, I trust our terroirs and the men and women taking care of them. In Europe, “vignerons” produce their own grapes and vinify them, as opposed to the New World approach.

Larry McKenna, Escarpment Vineyards (New Zealand). For me, “New World” generally means a wine will be some or all of the following: fruit-driven, clean and less complex, less obviously structured and tannic. But of course some New World wines are the opposite of this.

“Old World” wines seem to be less highly colored (reds), more deeply colored (whites), more complex and less obviously fruity, with firmer structure and more length. They seem to age more successfully and express their sense of place much better than New World versions of the same variety. Our “New World” wines have too much scientific influence so they tend to be more similar to each other and express less characteristics of place and vintage, or less terroir, to put it in a nutshell.

Marc Hugel, Hugel et Fils (France). In my mind, the New World includes all the countries discovered after 1492 (North & South America, Australia…). Vines were planted only recently in these countries (maximum 300 years but more commonly 150 years). So there are of course a lot of differences in the viticultural habits (varieties, practices…), the Old World situation being the result of more than a thousand years of natural adaptation (although climate warming will probably change the situation in the future).

On average, the Old World seems to have more cold-climate vineyards than the New World and this makes a big difference in the style of the wines. The Old World, and especially France, seems to produce the style of wine their ancestors have been making for generations, and try to make it as good as possible in the respect of the natural expression of the terroir (soil and climate).

New World countries don’t seem to have so much orientation pressure in the style of their wines and are capable of producing more or less the style that markets are asking for. In short, I generally find more originality and subtlety in Old World wines (thanks to the huge amount of varieties and terroirs) and I find more “technical precision” in New World wines.

Olivier Humbrecht, Domaine Zind-Humbrecht (France). Sorry, I never use these expressions, which I find irrelevant today. (You can quote me on that). For me, Old World doesn’t mean old-fashioned enology and New World modernism, with all the positive and negative connotations of both expressions. I just tasted Penfold’s 2004 Cabernet Kalimna Block 42 (stunning wine by the way), and there was nothing ‘New World’ about these 125-year-old vines!

Roberto de la Mota, Mendel Wines (Argentina). Wine lovers often refer to wines as “Old World” or “New World” in style, sometimes without even being able to explain what they mean. What do these two terms mean to you? What are the characteristics that would make YOU call a wine New World or Old World?

Nowadays it is difficult to define wines as “New” or “Old” world based only on their styles because both sides of the globe, metaphorically speaking, have rich and complex products. Many years ago, wines from “Old World” were defined by origin, “terroir,” with huge differences between the vintages. On the other side, wines from “New World” were defined by countries or big regions, but more for varieties, brands, winemakers, aging (more or less oak), etc.

Regarding styles, Old World wines were more complex, with acids, astringents, less alcohol, and more time needed before being ready to drink. In opposition, wines from the New World were riper, with bigger structure but with sweeter tannins, higher alcohol, more fruit, ready to drink very young, softer, simpler or easier to understand them, less expensive to produce or with a better value-money ratio. (Those characteristics help to explain the big success of wines from New World, especially with low and medium price wines).

Currently, these differences are less important. Old World wines often try to be friendlier and riper with huge efforts to gain in fruit (climate change and vineyard work helps a lot). At the same time, New World wine tries to demonstrate that it too can be complex, concentrated and with capacity to age for many years.

Louis Barruol, Château de Saint Cosme (France). Old World and New World mean nothing to me. This is an invention of the merchants and the journalists. It might appear to be strange coming from a person who’s from a 500-year-old estate, but it really means nothing to me. Some people have made wine for 150 years in Australia. Some Frrench winemakers make technological wine and have no history. It is just not the right way to approach the world of wine as a classification. We would better classify the estates and the winemakers of the world for what they really have in common in terms of philosophy. And then the frontiers and the mass judgments would explode.

Ben Smith, Cadence Winery (Washington). The dividing line, for me, is the dominance of non-fruit components of the nose and palate. Secondary characteristics include the structure of the wine, with Old World styled wines tending to have more apparent acidity and firmer tannins. Old World wine tends to have a much greater predominance of savory characteristics, minerality, earth. New World flavors center on fruit, and other flavors take a back seat. It is clear, though, that either style can be made almost anywhere given modern winemaking/winegrowing techniques and winemaker preferences.

Laurence Féraud, Domaine du Pegau (France). The New World style is more recognisable when the wine is dark, deep coloured, with big black fruit. It also shows some sweetness, and a variable quantity of new oak with a typical toffee style. Guessing the origin of the wine is difficult most of the time.

Old World wines possess a wider range of colours and aromas, and typically display more acidity. There are many more different styles of wine that range from light and delicate, to deep and brooding, and everything in between.  With these wines, there are more recognisable characteristics which can help us guess the country and possibly region of production, the grape or grapes used, and maybe even the winemaker’s style.

Lamberto Frescobaldi, Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi (Italy). Good question, that will open big discussions. The Old World produces wines that have a strong link with the terroir, meaning a link with soil, climate, varieties and traditions. The New World produces wines that are linked practically only to the variety and have a definition more oriented toward the consumer of the New World.

It’s difficult to say more…..

Jean-Marie Fourrier, Domaine Fourrier (France). New World vs. Old World is a bit like the difference between classic and contemporary. When it comes to wine, I would call New World when the science of winemaking has been the most important, and Old World when the understanding of land and its climate has been the most important. The thing is, today in Europe some people are making New World style wines and in the rest of the world some people are doing working in an Old World style.

In the scale of time, 100 years is nothing for the vineyards, and New World style will probably be considered in 50 years as an old style. In conclusion, for me the nuance when I taste is to see if the wine reminds me the winery or if it reminds me of the vineyards.

Jason Haas, Tablas Creek Vineyard (California). I think we have an interesting perspective on this as we’re a New World winery with Old World roots. And it seems that every time we have a serious taster here they spend at least part of their time trying to decide in what aspects we’re New World and in what aspects Old World.

The fundamental distinction in most people’s minds seems to be whether the wine speaks more clearly about the fruit (New World) or more clearly about the land (Old World). Of course, it’s always going to be a question of degree, since all wines have reflections of both fruit and terroir. But there are clearly degrees of difference, determined both by the climate in which the vineyards are planted and the choices that the winemaker or vineyard manager makes about how to farm and when to harvest.

For us, we try to straddle the line. It’s easy, in Paso Robles, to make wines that are very fruit-forward, both because of all the sun here and because the cold nights force the grapes to stay on the vines a long time and pick up pretty tremendous fruit intensity. So we focus our efforts on making sure that the non-fruit components are reflected. We do this by making sure we pick at ripeness, but not overripeness. And by using all native yeasts in fermentation. And by including grape varieties in our blending (like grenache blanc and picpoul) that have great acidity and minerality.  And by dry-farming, which forces grapevine roots deep into the bedrock in search of water. And by farming organically, which has the same impact. In the end, if people go back and forth as to whether they think our wines taste “New World” or “Old World,” I think we’ve succeeded.