Grape growers are completely stuck in their choice of grapes. Each grape has a climate it loves. If you’ve got the climate, you grow the grape, if not, you don’t. Simple as that!
The grapes that go into the GSM blend (Grenache, Shiraz, Mataro) are all hot weather grapes. The Old World (think European) home of this lot is the South of France, and in particularly the Southern Rhône. It’s one of the only places in Europe where all these grapes have the right climate to grow perfectly.
It’s actually where the GSM blend began, with Côtes Du Rhône blends heavily favouring these three. That’s where the idea came from, and where everyone realized how well these three fit together. So the question for anyone else was, does my vineyard area support the three together?
Well, funnily enough the US found a couple of places, Washington State on the North East Coast being the most widespread. The Spanish quite obviously found a place, just over the Riviera in the Priorat region near Barcelona, where they base of the idea of GSM, but can swap a few bits around.
The famous place though, from a UK point of view at least (sorry to the US guys here), is Barossa in South Australia. This vineyard area, just above Adelaide, gets scorching heat in the summer, and although can sometimes be accused of not managing the heat better (the wines can sometimes be a bit jammy) that heat means the grapes are near as damn it always ripe, giving big, fat, alcoholic red wines.
As Ant said in his post, perfect to get through these winter nights.
Cheers
Other Posts in NWTW Week 48:
#NWTW Week 48: GSM from Down Under (Part One)
