SPAIN already has the biggest area under vine in the world. But with its historical position of not being allowed to irrigate, many of the vineyards in the hot, arid centre of Spain are at very low densities to give each vine a large enough area from which to draw any available water. So with more than 1.1 million hectares of vineyard, Spain is well ahead of France in number two slot with 850,000ha. Australia suddenly seems quite small fry with just 170,000ha.
Vineyard area is one thing, but Spain's production has always been behind that of France and Italy because of low yields in dry farmed land. But production has been increasing steadily in Spain with improved techniques, and irrigation is now permitted. A recent study has predicted Spain will overtake France as the world's number one producer by 2015. Combine Spain's increasing production with declining production in France, down from about six billion litres a decade ago to less than five billion now and the picture is easy to imagine. The big drop in France's production reflects both declining domestic consumption and an export market that's been eroded, especially by New World countries. France's vinous supremacy is under attack from all angles. Just as Spain is predicted to be the world's top producer, the US is on the verge of overtaking France as the biggest consumer.
When the numbers are broken down, the US story is not so remarkable. In the very broadest of brushstrokes, France has 60 million people consuming an average 60 litres each. Total annual consumption is 3.6 billion litres. The US population is 290 million and wine consumption about 12 litres a head; total consumption is 3.5 billion litres. As soon as consumption increases over the course of a year by another half-litre a head - still pretty low by Aussie and European standards - the US becomes the biggest wine consuming nation. No wonder the US is viewed as a big export opportunity, though the latest figures show Australian export value to the US is down 25 per cent.
Another thing rising in the US is consumption of riesling, the fastest-growing white grape variety in the country. Of 34,000ha of riesling in the world, more than 21,000 are in the variety's homeland, Germany. Yet, for years now, Australia has been promoted and championed as being the fire beneath the riesling phoenix, but it has to be said that riesling remains a pretty cult choice, regardless of the fact that it is one of the world's three finest and most ageworthy white grape varieties, alongside chardonnay and Austria's gruner veltliner.
Proper sweet riesling from Germany is to-die-for stuff, with its precise, knife-edge balance between sweetness and acidity, although in the more "mainstream" dry riesling group, Germany makes a lot, but seems to keep it for home consumption, not letting heathen export markets near the stuff. Despite the best efforts and passions of the wine industry and wine writers, riesling remains, it seems, confusing for consumers. A web forum for all things riesling exists in German (<www.riesling.de>) and several dedicated riesling competitions exist, such as the Riesling of the World (<www.riesling-du-monde.com>), in which the only gold for an Aussie wine went to Pewsey Vale, The Contours, Eden Valley 2006, whereas virtually all the others were for French and German rieslings. There's also the Canberra International Riesling Challenge (<www.rieslingchallenge.com>) and the International Riesling Competition (<www.bestofriesling.de>) where Bay of Fires 2007 from Tasmania won silver in the dry category.
Herein lies a nub. Sweet is sweet, but when does dry become not-quite-dry? Dry, in Germany, is defined as wines with up to 4g/l of residual sugar (all straightforward and fine, barely, if at all noticeable sugar). Dry is also defined as a wine with 2g/l more sugar than acidity, up to a maximum of 9g/l of sugar, which means a wine in the dry category could have 7g/l acidity and 9g/l sugar, or it could have 6g/l acidity and 8g/l sugar (only 2g/l more sugar than acidity). Still following?
Not that we're talking about adding acidity in Germany, thought we might be talking about adding grape juice. The point, as always, is the balance between fruit/sugar and acidity. Adding a bit of unfermented grape juice, reserved from the harvest, is more a precise way to achieve that balance than stopping the fermentation before it's finished. And the Germans are nothing if not precise. It may all be a bit confusing, but the wines still taste pretty dry, but not bone-dry. The aim is to create as exquisite a balance as possible.
That's a technical issue. Labelling is another confusion. Many non-Germans who know a little about riesling are taught that spatlese is quite sweet and fruity, but many these days are made dry - called spatlese trocken (dry). Drier, weightier, still aromatic but in a more tropical, richer and heady style. To try to address this (and leaving aside several further complications in German wine labelling) there have been various calls to help consumers' understanding of riesling. Already some of the top producers in the Nahe region of Germany have voted to label all dry wines as dry wines, even if they qualify for the German ‘sweetness' rankings of kabinett, spatlese or auslese. The ‘sweetness' ranking at harvest is, of course, also a potential alcohol ranking, as though all the sugar had been converted to alcohol and the wine would be dry.
A new International Riesling Foundation was inaugurated in the US at end of last year, and its first mission is to suggest an international system to label riesling according to sugar levels. This may well help but, as we've seen, it's not that simple - we come back again to balance. The perception of sweetness is not just to do with grammes per litre of sugar. High natural acidity makes us perceive wines as drier than we would perceive them if the acidity was lower. Perhaps it's just time to step onto the tightrope and see how you enjoy that fine balancing line between fruit sweetness and acidity. The trend is for fresher, more aromatic, unoaked styles of wine. Riesling has all that, in spades.