soccer and wine

An interesting fact about the 2010 Soccer World Cup Finals is that every major wine producing country is represented, except China. Let’s go through them one by one in order from largest producers.

1) Italy – Always vies with France for the top spot and sometimes battles France to see who gets knocked out first.
2) France – See above.
3) Spain – The largest producer by area, but only the third largest volume producer due to low yields.
4) USA – Possibly the only big producer not to be reliant on exports.
5) Argentina – The home of the very fashionable Malbec, and Messi.
6) China – The only country in the top 12 that is not represented.
7) Australia – The country has grown tremendously in the past decade, but has a severe over supply.
8) South Africa – Managed to reach the World Cup by virtue of hosting it, but its reputation for wine production is well earned (call me biased)
9) Germany – The home of precision Riesling and precision football.
10) Chile – This is another country that has grown tremendously and is home to great value wines.
11) Portugal – The worlds largest collection of different cultivars, not even the Portugese know all of them.
12) Greece – Grower many unpronounceable varietals.

And at 16th we have Brazil, but I suspect their end position in the World Cup will be higher than 16th.

Other noteworthy producers that are represented include New Zealand, Uruguay, Mexico, Algeria and Slovenia. I have personally met a wine grower from the Netherlands, but I od not think that we can include them as one of the larger producers. And let us not forget about the UK, as they seem to be turning out a lot of sparkling wines these days, but I doubt they will be using it to toast football success…