Tra le cose che gli americani hanno piu’ di noi c’e’ lo zelo per le statistiche, che redigono con maniacale precisione, secondo me anche grazie al vero impegno che ci mettono le "vittime" dei rilevamenti a fornire i dati. Siamo quindi in grado di farci un’idea della suddivisione per vitigni della produzione in California.
Ne esce un quadro abbastanza chiaro: dominio assoluti dei vitigni francesi, soprattutto nei vitigni bianchi, scarsissima e qualitativamente scarsa la rappresentanza dei vitigni italiani. Incredibili numeri per tutto quello che comincia con Pinot…
One of the things that americans do better is statistics, which are extremely precise. In my view, this is also thanks to the seriousness of the parties who are providing the figures. We are therefore able to go for a precise distribution of grape varieties in the California region.
We derive a clear picture: total domination of the French varieties, particularly among white grapes, very rare and poor in quality the production of Italian grapes. Finally, there are incredibly good figures about Pinot production…
In California, 2006 production was down 16% to 3.1m/tons of grapes, with an average level of sugar (brix) or 23.4 (+2.6%). Of these, 60% are the 1.87m tons of red grapes.
Dominant grapes are Cab Sauvignon, with 423k/tons, then Merlot and Zinfandel with 330-340k/tons each. Other famous names? Syrah is n.5 with 118k/tons, Pinot Noir is n.6 with 106k/tons. But, please note, all the production is trending down except for Pinot Noir whic.h in 2006 was +12%


