What does this mean, Old World/New World?

Old World: the best wines, the only ones worth drinking, the most historic and fancy, I only drink Buuuuuurgundy and Italian wines (i.e. the earth is flat)

New World: rule breakers, I’m going to plant what I want, where I want, give me BIG FRUIT! (i.e. the earth is actually round, full of other continents, and (shockingly) other grapes)

Which camp are you in? Or are you (aghast) both? Ok, all snarkery (is that a word?) aside, many wine people use these terms to GENERALLY describe these two different styles of wine, from a Eurocentric perspective.

The oldest wine regions (well, aside from the ACTUAL most ancient which are possibly Egyptian) are in what wine people call the Old World. This translates mostly to Europe: France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria…

New World wines are from “younger” wine growing regions, like Argentina, California, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Chile…

The Old World is full of rules about what grapes you can plant, where, how dense you can grow your vines, when you can harvest, aging in wood, what type of wood, aging timelines, on and on! This stuff may all be based on historically what actually produces some pretty amazing wines, so you can take it or leave it. These wines tend to have longer aging potential if you’re into that sort of thing, and also have more subtle fruit flavors. Terroir (the magical combination of the earth, vines, climate, and not monkeying around with winemaking techniques) is King.

The New World has some rules, but mostly so that the consumer knows what they are buying is what it says on the bottle and is actually from the place listed. New World wine growers have much more freedom to plant any variety they think will do well, and age it however long they want in whatever they want. The fruit flavors tend to be more powerful than Old World wines. The Winemaker is king, meaning, choices like type of wood and aging, malolactic conversion (or not) may be considered more important than the actual region (terroir) itself.

Go try some…which do you prefer? Fruity New World? Subtle Old World? I bet you’ll find some that don’t follow these generalizations – comment below!