Trying to Confuse Things More

I think we need to change the way we look at classifying wine countries. When I took a sommelier class I was told to classify wines as old world and new world. There are a couple reasons I don’t think this works any more. You can’t classify all regions in the same country as the same and you can’t classify all new world or old world countries the same. Should wine from Arizona be considered the same as Napa, or should Wine from China be considered the same as Australian. No, I don’t think so. So in order to confuse the wine industry more we should change the terms for old world and new world and add a new category. Old world wine country should be changed to Classic wine regions. This would include the traditional Bordeaux, Burgundy, Chianti, Rioja, Pfalz, etc. New World countries should be changed to Emerging wine regions, such as China, Arizona, and Canada. The new third classification should be Established wine regions. These are regions that are well known but do not have the history of a Bordeaux. I am thinking of regions like Napa, Australia, and Languedoc. This new classification system would allow us to split a single countries wine regions into classic, established and emerging. In France you would have Burgundy classified as classic, Languedoc as Established and and the Vin de Pays as Emerging. Although there is a problem with this classification, who is put in charge of deciding what is classic, established and emerging? Someone is going to argue that Napa should be classified as Classic. It can be said that Napa is a Classic American wine region, but only an established world wine region. So is it a Classic or Established? I guess it’s up for you to decide.