North America

The United States

The United States of America is the world’s fourth largest producer of wine and claims the world’s sixth highest acreage of land under vine.

California produces approximately 85% of all American wine, followed by Washington, New York, and Oregon. With a large population as compared to traditional wine-producing countries, the US surpassed France in early 2011 to become the world’s largest wine consumer. Despite this, the country only ranked 62nd in per capita consumption by 2016, with just 30% of the population identifying as wine drinkers. In 2019, the US experienced its first decline in wine consumption in 25 years, as the industry lost market share to fast-growing categories like canned hard seltzers, spirits, and craft beer. Still, the US continues to provide the world’s most substantial market for fine wines. Further, over the past 20 years, powerful American critics have come to wield significant influence on winemakers and markets worldwide.

History of Wine in America

In the early ninth century, the Viking Leiv Eriksson brought his boat aground at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada, as the first European to definitively set foot upon the North American continent. He christened his discovery Vinland—a possible reference to the meadows before him, or, as recounted in the 13th-century poem "Saga of the Greenlanders," a tribute to the wealth of native grapevines. Unlike South America, several species of wild grapevine awaited the first colonists of North America, including Vitis labrusca, Vitis rotundifolia, and Vitis aestivalis. Vitis vinifera, the source of fine wine