Muristek
More eclectic tastes and globalism have blurred the distinctions between old- and new-world wines, so much so that many new-world styles could these days pass for old, and vice versa
Someone on Twitter recently asked if it was it appropriate to use the term “new world” in relation to wine. Over the past couple of decades, it’s been a useful, if lazy, shorthand for the mainly southern hemisphere countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Chile and South Africa that provide much of our more affordable drinking, but I don’t think most people who use the term see it as derogatory, or would want to imply that new is inferior to old.
It’s more a way of telling consumers what to expect from a wine. By “new world”, they’re essentially talking about the modern wine industry, rather than those countries and regions where things are done in much the same way as they always have been, as well as wines that are generally fruitier, more full-bodied and have higher ABVs than traditional old-world wines. But the term’s critics do have a point: at the end of the day, it doesn’t bear a whole lot of scrutiny.
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