Wine is one of the most popular alcoholic beverages. With fruity and floral flavors, it's considered the oldest form of alcohol and is internationally adored. As a result, wine vacations are becoming increasingly popular, with more people looking to travel and see the world while getting to taste some of the best flavors that can be found!
If you’re curious about where to find the best wine in the nation, these are the top states you should travel through!
The first grapevines didn't reach Washington until 1825, brought by traders working for the Hudson's Bay Company. It wasn't until the 1860s that the first wine companies sprouted in the area, with German and Italian immigrants bringing their specialties from their home countries and creating familiar flavors and unique types of wine.
Moving forward, in the 1950s, new species of grapes were brought to the area, creating fortified sweet wine made from concord grapes. Companies that couldn't sell their wine, or had an abundance of fruit, began selling whole grapes in local markets, which boosted interest even more.
Modern Washington wine is known for its sweeter and fruitier flavor, offering a chance to feel like you're drinking juice despite being alcoholic. Although trends still come and go, recently, with the 1990s Merlot craze, there's been a large push for brands to put out unique flavors and ideas.
Virginia is one of the first states to have grown wine. Dating back to 1619, there was a push for colonists to start producing wine grapes to bring the community better together. In 1807, Thomas Jefferson perfected what had been going for the last couple hundred years and established two private grape vineyards in his south orchard. This died off eventually, and Virginia didn't see much success until the early 1900s.
Charlottesville's Monticello Wine Company started this rebirth, and finally, wine was able to flourish in Virginia. Since then, it's gone through several growing pains, but now Virginia is one of the best-known states when it comes to wine.
With over 250 wineries and forty-two thousand square miles of vineyards: there's no stopping the flavors here. Locals from expensive areas to apartments for rent in Richmond, VA, said the wine in Virginia is the best they've tasted.
California is well known for its wine and the incredible flavors it brings to the table. The wine industry has been thriving since San Francisco started gaining population (in 1848, it went from one thousand to twenty-five thousand in just a year!). The perfect cooler temperatures of Northern California, mixed with the long growing seasons, and fertile soil, made it the ideal place for vineyards to sprout.
There was a pause during the prohibition, just like everyone else in the nation: but this drove people to start making wine from home. These home wine-makers were quickly capable of creating unique flavors, understanding what affected the color, and deciding what they liked. Then, when alcohol became legal again, many of these home-brewed businesses moved on to large farming operations to turn a profit from it.
California has profited in the long term from this homemade ingenuity and keeps putting out fantastic wines that many people adore.
