Is the United States ready for Greek wines?

Greece enjoys a Mediterranean climate, similar to California - warm dry summers and occasional freezing in the winter.  In fact, San Francisco is nearly the same latitude as Athens Greece at about 38 degrees north.  Because of this similarity of climate, Greek wines are well adapted to grow in California.

UC Davis hosted an event today with wine makers from Greece and the United States joined by scientists, grape growers and wine sellers. Darrel Corti, wine expert from Corti Brothers in Sacramento, spoke about the acceptance of new Greek wines. Darrel sees many hurdles to overcome, even down to linguistic challenges with names unfamiliar to the American audience.

Darrel says that Greek wines will provide wine drinkers with something novel and exciting.  Every decade new wines are introduced, breathing new life into the world of wine, which Greek wines are poised to do.  Much of the industry is excited to present consumers with something they've never tasted.

Greek wines are different- they need more time to age and mature.  These are not formulaic wines, but rather something new and exciting.

This event had a tasting of 20 wines from Greece.  They were unique and robust in flavor.

Foundation Plant Services is working to release Greek grapes to nurseries and growers.  Because of their efforts you will soon see wines based on these varieties.

Today was not just filled with Greek wines.  Earlier in the day a visit from Constellation vineyards through Foundation Plant Services facilities to explain the services we provide to industry.   We also toured Russell Ranch, the future of the  FPS clean plant collection.  Scions and rootstock are all represented in this virus-free field.

There are 3 barns on site, two will be razed and the other will be repaired.

Guests were able to look all around Foundation Plant Services, including discussions with chip budder Marcos.

This was a really nice day of sharing between Foundation Plant Services and representatives from the wine industry throughout the world.