Google Earth Community: Wine Regions of the World

Well...this required a greater effort than I anticipated....so I had to organize this work in stages. Eventually, I will have a placemark for every wine region in the world.

So, this is how I did it:

Every wine producing country has at least two regions marked (safe those that possess only one region)
I tried to place each placemark on top of one vineyard belonging to the respective appellation (this will be better appreciated in the high-resolution areas)
I followed the appellation concept (a dear one in Europe, a novelty in development in New World countries). Abbreviations were used where applicable (AVA in the US, DVA in Canada, AOC in France, DOC in Portugal, and so on...)
In those countries with officially defined appellation areas, I retained those as wine regions. On others, I used administrative divisions as wine region names
Placemarks are arranged by higher administrative region (where the number of regions justified it), then by country and finally by continent. Given the small number of wine regions in Asia, I joined it with Oceania
Official sources (i.e. from government bodies) were used where publicly available. Where this information was not easily obtainable, I turned to credible sources, such as authoritative wine-writers, wine business media, tourism and trade bodies or wine producing companies for information.
I considered as a wine region only those producing wine from grapes grown from the main vine species, i.e. Vitis vinifera .

So, all wine producing countries are at least marked with two wine regions. Exceptions to this are:

Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, Canada and Australia where ALL wine regions are marked
The USA, where ALL wine regions in California are marked
Italy, where ALL wine regions of Piemonte are marked

The scope of this work is to produce a comprehensive and reliable source of information for anybody interested in discovering the world of wine. Even if in all the research I did, I tried carefully to compare infromations and use reliable sources, it is very possible that errors might have crept in, so if you notice any or if you know a wine region that is not listed in those countries I mention above as having ALL wine regions, I will appreciate if you let me know so that I can correct it.

The work is far from finished. My second stage will be to insert all missing wine regions from the remaining 49 states in the US, the remaining regions from Italy and New Zealand. I hope to finish that by March. Then I will proceed to insert all wine regions missing from the remaining countries. Eventually, I will insert in the collection, links and bibliographical references to each region.

In case you wonder if I am just a wine buff or someone who has studied something more than just the inside of a bottle or a glass ( a very natural doubt, of course), here are my qualifications:

BSc in Enology by UTAD university, Portugal
18 years experience as a winemaker
Lecturer on Wine Production at ESB-UCP University, Porto, Portugal

I hope this will make you enjoy better your next bottle of wine.

Regards.

VERSION HISTORY

1.1: Included all USA AVA's and all New Zealand wine regions. Corrected location for region Berkane in Morocco (tks Nonoth!)
1.2: Included all Italy's DOCG and DOC, all wine regions of Chile and Uruguay
1.21: Corrected location for DO Monte Lentiscal in Gran Canaria, Canary Is., Spain (tks Rogelio)
1.22: Included all wine regions from Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Croatia. From this version onwards, all finished countries will display sources I used to get information on their wine regions.
1.23: Corrected location for AOC Haut-Médoc, AOC Moulis-en-Médoc, AOC Lussac-St. Emilion and AOC Canon-Fronsac in Bordeaux, France (tks Christian)
1.24: corrected location for Rietrivier FS, created group Northern Cape and marked fortified region Boberg in South Africa (tks. Watamu)
1.25: corrected location for Russian River Valley AVA in California (tks Jon W.)
1.26: fixed GoTo coordinates for DO Ribeiro in Spain. It moved the focus to Oslo, Norway...!!! (tks Bottleshock)
1.3: included all wine regions of Austria and Hungary
1.31: fixed location for Potter Valley AVA (tks KirknKatie); fixed location for San Ysidro AVA (tks GregPerrucci and edrooks); fixed location for DOC Alta Langa (tks VercellioP), location for McDowell Valley AVA (tks Len Brutocao) and location for Cahul, Moldova (tks Serghei)

Edited by Antonio_Rocha_Graca (08/20/08 06:31 PM)

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