Should We Stop Saying “New World”?

Why hasn’t the wine industry term “New World” gone the way of other problematic terms like “Oriental”?

This is the transcript of a special episode of the Organic Wine Podcast that I published on February 16, 2023. If you'd rather listen than read, you can do that here. 

We, in the wine industry, regularly divide the world into two parts: The Old World and the New World.

The Old World is Europe, into and including Eurasian areas around the Caucasus mountains. The New World is everywhere else.

Aside from the fact that everywhere else is a pretty massive and diverse area belied by this homogenizing and, let’s be honest, pejorative term, the painting of most of the world with one brush brings up even deeper issues.

The term “New World” reveals the true colonial nature of the global wine industry.

Wine – the dominant culture’s take on it at least, as codified and disseminated by organizations like The Court of Master Sommeliers and The Wine and Spirits Education Trust – is a colonial ideology spread originally by the English (who started both of the aforementioned organizations), who fetishized French wines predominantly, with nods to Italy, Spain, Germany, and Hungary & Portugal to the extent that they were invested in wine ventures in these last two.

“New World” means that entire world of wine outside of these English-approved European wine cultures will always be referential and derivative.

To the extent that wine has been allowed to expand beyond the narrow strictures of Europe, it has been mainly within or adjacent to these borders. We may now include the Jura in our appreciation of French wine, and we may now explore some of the more obscure grapes of Southern France and Italy. Also, we are permitted to admire the wine cultures of Austria, Greece, and Georgia peripherally.

This idea of wine is still limited to grapes alone, and not actually “grapes” plural, but one grape: Vitis Vinifera. This one European grape, and our embrace of England’s wine culture, rather than our development of our own wine cultures wherever we are in theworld, accounts for the entireglobalcolonial monoculture known as “wine,” and only 20 popular cultivars of this one grape account for 80% of thatglobalproduction. In the USA, a mere 7 cultivars of Vitis Vinifera account for close to 70% of the “wine production.”

We in the “New World” may only explore “Old World” cultivars if we wish to be included in “wine.” Any other species of Vitis has been branded inferior in both sensory appeal and moral standing.

This wine-idea structure puts the majority of the world (the New World) always at a disadvantage: always imitating, always trying to be as good as the original.

In addition to the detrimental ecological impacts of this monoculture – from attempting to grow the same maladapted grape in every environment around the world– and the problematic Eurocentrism of this term, it has also resulted in a wine world that is devoid of diversity, bereft of local color or unique culture. In a word, it has made wine BORING.

And we wonder why “wine” sales are declining, or why “wine” isn’t getting traction in younger generations.

There’s nothing wrong with England’s approach to wine culture, nor with European wine culture in general. The wine cultures of Europe are deep and rich and deserve appreciation and study. What’s wrong is that England’s wine culture has been mistaken for Wine Culture, as in “the only acceptable wine culture for the entire world.”

French wine IS delicious. It’s just not the only delicious wine on the planet, and it’s certainly not more delicious than any other wine except perhaps in the realm of subjective judgement.

The good news is that this wine world as we have come to know it is not actually wine.

Wine is something big and inclusive and indigenous and colorful and unique to every culture around the globe.

Wine is something that varies from year to year and place to place. It reflects local abundance and reflects the unique ways that human cultures interact with the land.

Wine can be made anywhere. In North America alone we have at least 24 different species of grapes, and we’ve barely begun to ripple the surface of that gene pool. What would we achieve with centuries of breeding and selection programs from this enormous genetic resource?

What would we have achieved if we had just spent the last 70 years breeding and selecting rather than trying to perfect our imitation of our colonial parents?

And wine isn’t made only with grapes. In Belize you might drink cashew wine (made from the fruit, not the nut), and in different regions of Mexico you might drink wines that have been made for thousands of years like tepache (made from pineapples), pulgue (made from agave), or colonche (made from prickly pears), and more!

All of this is wine, and every region of theworldmakes a special version of wine based on what fermentable plant-fruits thrive there naturally.  

Do we really need to colonize the world with Cabernet in order to have wine?

No, we don’t.

We don’t need any more derogatory “New World Wine.”

We need a new world of wine. 

Cheers!
Adam