No fear, new terroirs are here

That all changed in the late 1980s and 1990s with the irresistible rise of the sun-filled wines of the new world. But even in the mid-2000s, by which time Australia had eclipsed France as the UK’s number one wine country, if you were after a drinkable bottle of wine, your search was essentially limited to vineyards distributed along two bands of the globe between 30° and 50° latitude in the northern and southern hemispheres, outside of which conditions were considered to be too cold or too hot for wine production.

Browsing on the vast buyer’s database that is wine-searcher.com today, however, it’s easy to find bottles from latitudes far below and above those two magic numbers, whether it’s the tropical 5° to 20°N of Thai vineyards or the 59°N of Gvarv in Norway. It has also become much easier to source wines from places that sit comfortably within the conventional latitudinal bands but fall to the east (Turkey) or far east (Ningxia in China, Japan’s Yamanashi prefecture) of the traditional British wine-drinker’s occidental wine worldview.

That drinkable wines are being made in many more places than even 10 years ago is down to a mixture of globalisation of tastes (and the imitative desire to DIY that goes with it), advances in winemaking technology and winegrowing techniques, and changes in the climate. The question of how many of them are worth swapping for more traditional favourites is another matter, however. Many still fall short, especially once you factor in what I think of as a curiosity premium on the price.

For now, the wine places most likely to offer more than just novelty or a tick in a completist’s notebook are those where a new generation of independent growers have revived dormant quality winemaking traditions, a broad category that takes in much of the former Yugoslavia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Armenia and Turkey, among others.

For the future, I’d be looking out for the well-funded Japanese and, particularly, Chinese wine industries to build on their already impressive gains. But the countries I expect to take centre stage in the wine guidebooks of the 2050s are those with most to gain from wine’s climate-crisis-enabled push north. Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK are all still very much hit-and-miss, but at their best are already making wines with a nerve and snap that is only going to get scarcer further south in the years to come.

Boldgrad Odesa Chardonnay, Odesa, Ukraine 2023 (£11.50, thewinesociety.com)

Somehow, the ongoing war hasn’t stopped Ukrainian wine’s quality-focused re-emergence from the Soviet and casino-capitalist years of largely mediocre bulk production. This pristine, unoaked chardonnay is crisply enjoyable, summery and bright.

Wanderwyld Primitivo, North Macedonia 2023 (£9.25, Waitrose)

Known locally as kratosija, the grape behind this wine is one and the same as southern Italian primitivo (and US zinfandel) and, in its North Macedonian redoubt, it makes similarly rich, robust, warmly plum-fruited reds that are ideal for the barbecue.

Grace Koshu Kayagatake, Yamanashi, Japan 2023 (from £24.50, novelwines.co.uk)  

The burgeoning Japanese wine industry’s main USP is the delicately floral, gently white-fruited, intrinsically elegant dry white wine made from the native koshu variety, with Grace a standout producer of these ideal accompaniments for sushi.

Chateau de Bousval Gouttes d’O Chardonnay Jardines de Wallonie, Belgium 2022 (£30.85, hhande.co.uk) 

English wine has been compared favourably to champagne and burgundy, but it’s not the only once-marginal northern European country making increasingly fine, nervy, chiselled wines, with this gorgeously flowing salty Belgian chardonnay more than a match for good chablis.

ArmAs Aragatson, Karmrahyut, Armenia 2022 (from £17.48, tikveslondon.uk; strictlywine.co.uk; greatwinesdirect.co.uk)

Neighbouring Georgia may have attracted more attention in the UK and US so far, but Armenia’s wine producers are also in the midst of reinvigorating the ancient winemaking culture in the Caucasus, with wines such as this robust but perfumed, brightly balanced, cherry-blossom and berry-filled rosé.

Pizzato Fausto Tannat, Serra Gaucha, Brazil 2022 (£17.99, novelwines.co.uk)

When you think South American wine, you think Argentina and Chile, with a seasoning of Uruguay. Harder to come by in the UK, Brazil is nonetheless a major producer, too, with its best bottles, such as this sleekly muscular, darkly fruited red, very much worth the diversion.