My Favorite Wine Maps part 1
This cool relief map of Washington state was put out by the Wine Commission is hanging over my lab sink.
Maps of vineyard regions are hanging up in my lab and decorating my apartment. Perfectly normal perfectly healthy. Here are some of my favorite maps.
I first saw one of the originals of this viticultural map of the Mosel from the late 1800s on the wall at J.J.Prum. The map was made to clarify the tax structure for vineyards and winemakers. All vineyards were divided into classes based upon net profit. (Van Volxem/Wiltingen) Katerina told me the Angel bookshop in Bernkastel sold new prints of this old map. It’s now hanging up in my lab above my Admeo Y15. I love this map almost as much as I love German Riesling.
Another map that is near and dear to my heart, I bought a full Cote d’Or Burgundy map at the Athénaeum bookshop in Beaune the harvest I was an intern at Domaine Dujac. This map has been decorating my lab since I started my business in 2006. I’m not sure they print a long Cote d’Or map anymore - I could only find links to Cote de Nuits and Cote de Beaune separately.
I read that the boundaries of the Vosne-Romanee appellation just changed and remember there was that reorg in 2017 so I guess my map is out of date?
The first place I saw this huge Willamette Valley map was the Argyle tasting room. This one is hanging in my apartment. Beautiful colors, interesting soil data. I love it.
Get it from the Willamette Valley Winery Association
This Champagne map has a long story - Gary Westby from K&L in San Francisco posted the pdfs of these Larmat maps like 15 years ago. I love the Blanc des Blancs Champagnes grown in La Cote des Blancs so that is the one I downloaded and had printed. It’s been hanging directly above my desk at the lab for the past 12 years. More recently, Peter Liem published his great Champagne book and included prints of these maps folded in the back.
There’s an article in Wine Spectator about these Larmat maps of French wine regions. Maybe this should be the focus of a future blog post… I would love to learn more about Larmat.
This is Chianti map is a new one for me, I learned about it on Wine Berserkers. Chianti Classico is both delicious and great value. Rare Wine Company in Sonoma sells these beautiful maps from Alessandro Masnaghetti.
Known as the map man of Italy, Masnaghetti studied enology in Bordeaux before devoting his life to vineyard cartography. Check out his instagram @map_man_masna
Of course I have a Washington AVA map up in the lab - not this exact one pictured above, mine is really not up to date with the current AVAs and new plantings. But it is still useful when my clients are talking about a vineyard or if I’m trying to explain to somebody where the Royal Slope AVA is. But in the car, I use GPS pins from my vineyard managers to find my specific vinerows.
Stay tuned for another post about more of my wine maps…