The world’s great grape trails
By Ralph Kyte-Powell | theage.com.au | 03 October
Champagne, France
Few other words are so synonymous with celebration and fun. The French region that gave us the world's most imitated, luxurious sparkling wine is about two hours' drive east of Paris and it makes a fascinating detour for the traveller.
Of course, the wine is the thing for some of us and tours of the cellars in the main city of Reims are a must. They range in style from clubby, old-world charm to the Hollywood-meets-Disneyland experience of Piper-Heidsieck, where a little dodgem car takes you on a ride through subterranean cellars. A tour through the crayeres - the chalk underground cellars used for hundreds of years for storing the maturing wine - is recommended; Charles Heidsieck has great examples.
Once you've made acquaintance with Champagne wine there are other sparkling experiences. Reims Cathedral is one of the most beautiful in Europe. Built between the 13th and 15th centuries, it was where French kings were crowned until the 1800s. The stained glass in the cathedral is spectacular.
Just outside Reims is Fort de la Pompelle, on the front line from 1914 to 1918. It is now kept as a fascinating museum of the horrors and triumphs of that awful conflict.
Cape Town, South Africa
The heart of South Africa's wine country is the town of Stellenbosch, about 50 kilometres east of Cape Town. Dating back to 1679, its long history has left a great legacy of historic buildings in the classic Cape Dutch style.
The surrounding landscape makes this one of the most spectacular wine regions in the world, with craggy mountains as a backdrop to vineyards and bushland. Vineyards here are called "wine farms" and some, such as the historic Plaisir de Merle - a splendid whitewashed Cape Dutch complex at the foot of the majestic Simonsberg mountain - are as atmospheric as any in the world.
Nearer to Cape Town, south of the city on the eastern slopes of Table Mountain, is the source of South Africa's most famous wine, Constantia. This muscat dessert wine, a favourite of Napoleon, was as famous as the great growths of Europe in the late 18th century but the dreaded vine louse phylloxera decimated the area in the late 19th century. Today the winery known as Klein Constantia, now just beyond the edge of Cape Town's suburban sprawl, has been resurrected and the original sweet "Vin de Constance" is back.
Baboons have been known to emerge from the bush at the top of the vineyard to feast on the ripe grapes. Enraged baboons aren't good neighbours, so the vineyard workers let them eat without disruption.Cinque Terre, Italy
Italians will plant grapes just about anywhere. You stumble across them in forests, backyards, between blocks of flats, behind service stations ... But nowhere is the Italian penchant for turning the country into one big vineyard more evident than along the rugged coastline known as the Cinque Terre, near La Spezia in Italy's north-west.
The Cinque Terre, meaning "five lands", comprises five villages in almost inaccessible enclaves beneath cliffs along the coastline. A walking track connects them all and they can be reached by boat or train from Genoa and La Spezia. Above these little villages stretch some of the world's steepest vineyards.
In similar mountain-goat territory in other parts of the world, vineyards rely on pickers carrying grapes on their backs but at Cinque Terre the slopes are often too steep and the pickers too old, so the grapes take the train. A crazy monorail system with little petrol-powered locomotives hauls the loads of grapes up to the winery.
Is all the trouble worth it? Twenty years ago you'd have to say no. But these days a program of improvement in viticulture, technique and equipment has resulted in a fresh, intense, well-made white wine that goes well with the coast's harvest of fish.
There's also a sweet Sciacchetra made from part-dried grapes, just as it was in 1450, which is outstanding.
Chile
Wine in Chile has a 450-year history but only in the 1980s did it become world class.
The country's wine trails provide a great voyage of discovery for the adventurous traveller. The wine heartland is the warm, dry Maipo Valley, near the capital city of Santiago, and sauvignon blanc, cabernet sauvignon, carmenere, merlot and chardonnay are the main grapes.
Montes, one of Chile's quality producers, has been developing new vineyards and technical directions; the most interesting are the steep, rugged hillsides of the Apalta Valley, near the picturesque town of Santa Cruz, about 50 kilometres south of Santiago. Syrah, our Aussie shiraz, is a specialty. Watch out for puma stalking in the wooded hills nearby.
In Colchagua Valley, Cono Sur is a large, friendly winery specialising in pinot noir.
First published by TheAge.com.au on October 03 2008
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