What are old world and new world wines?

Let’s start at the beginning – or approximately 6000 BC in Georgia (the country in Europe, not the state in America), where some bright spark crushed grapes and fermented them into an alcoholic beverage. Evidence points to Georgia being the first place to have made wine, but many other European nations such as Greece, France, Italy and Spain have also grown grapevines and made wine for millennia. It’s these nations that fall into the category of ‘old world’ – for obvious reasons.

Wine has since spread around the world, often as a result of European colonisation and advances in agricultural practices and technology, and established vineyards and wine industries are now found in countries much further afield. We’re one of them, with a positively newborn industry in comparison to the old world, and we’re in good company, too. That includes nations across South America, South Africa, Scandinavia and even Asia. We’re talking China, India, Sweden and Uruguay, to name just four places where it might’ve seemed ridiculous to plant grapevines not so long ago. It’s these countries that are often referred to as the new world – again, for obvious reasons.

With huge developments in farming, viticulture and winemaking – not to mention a changing climate – the possibilities are proving endless. Thai shiraz? It’s a very real thing. Grape varieties created especially for Sweden’s climate? These wines already have a legion of fans. The new world of wine borrows a whole lot from the old and, increasingly, vice versa.

While winemaking countries and their regions are often referred to as old world and new world, these terms can also be applied to wine techniques and styles, but this isn’t always as clear-cut as it might seem. New-world producers commonly make wines following ancient practices from the old world, while old-world producers have adopted many new-world techniques along the way. The lines have blurred in the best possible way.   

After making wine for thousands of years, it’s no surprise that the old world is controlled by strict rules involving which grapes are permitted in each region, winemaking parameters, how long a wine ages and so much more. This means that a French wine, for example, that’s grown and made in a very specific way will inevitably reflect an old-world style, and the traditional characters and techniques of its place of origin.

New-world wine regions, on the other hand, enjoy much greater freedom. This has driven experimentation and the development of new techniques and wine styles that can’t necessarily happen in old world regions. If you look at our dynamic wine scene around Australia, we grow grapes from all around the world – varieties that thrive in a range of warmer international regions have become our greatest weapon against our changing climate. And we can also plant them wherever we like, and blend them together with whatever other variety we want, which means we’re continually innovating and creating delicious new styles to try. 

Just one early example of this innovation here in Australia is with our classic red blend of cabernet sauvignon and shiraz; it dates back to the late 1800s. While France now has various grapes growing together in the south, cabernet was always restricted to Bordeaux and shiraz to the Rhône Valley, and inter-region blending prohibited. Here, however, we discovered these grapes work very nicely in the same wine, thank you very much, and these red blends reflect some of our earliest wine achievements.