This Is the Year for New World Wines. Here's What to Buy
Sorry, France and Italy. The weather gods have cast their lot with Australia, New Zealand, and the Americas this year.
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In every wine country, vintners anxiously scan the skies all year, hoping weather challenges will still let them make great, or at least good, wine.
So far, 2016 has been a very rough year for Europe’s vintners, with one weather catastrophe after another. Hailstorms in Barolo. Spring frosts, then mildew, in Champagne, and equally disastrous weather events in Burgundy, Chablis, and Beaujolais. In some instances, 70 percent of the crops were lost. Some tiny growers may go out of business.