The United States is the world's fourth leading producer of wine. Although predominantly reliant on the domestic market, the U.S. industry has evolved as an exporter to markets around the world. Over the past 10 years production has declined while vintners have shifted from ordinary to quality wine grape varieties. The production of quality varietals characterizes the keenly competitive situation among New World suppliers.
Wine exports from the United States have set a record in each of the past 11 years. Since the August 1984/ July 1985 marketing year, U.S. wine shipments have risen over six-fold, while unit value has increased 42 percent on total export value of $209.7 million.
The United States is also a major import market, primarily from suppliers in the European Union (EU), Chile, and Australia. Wine imports were valued at a record $1.07 billion in the August 1994/ July 1995 marketing year.
On a volume basis, U.S. imports are twice as much as exports. However, on a value basis, the imbalance is about five times, with import value reaching a record $1.07 billion in 1994/95.
The major suppliers to the U.S. market in volume terms are
Italy and France, followed somewhat distantly by Chile, Spain, and
Australia. However, total import value of French wine ($498 million)
far surpasses the combined value of Italian ($303 million), Australian
($52 million), and Chilean ($45 million) wines.
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Vintners and Grape Growers: Harm or help the environment?
A study, entitled
But Williams also demonstrated, for the first time, that grapevines re-absorb all of the bad gases, and even contribute a surplus of the best gas of all, oxygen.
The wine industry is a contributor of CO2 to the atmosphere due to a variety of practices. In addition, wineries during fermentation release quantities of ethanol into the surrounding air, and ethanol may be oxidized to ozone in the atmosphere. Atmospheric ozone is thought to be the major air pollutant in California, and may contribute to the greenhouse effect.
The wine industry is a contributor of CO2 and ethanol to the atmosphere in several ways:
Winery Emissions
Turning next to the winery, Williams found that fermentation results in about 400 tons of ethanol introduced into the atmosphere annually, which may lead to the production of ozone.
But he also pointed out that California vineyards are estimated to take up through their leaves 75 tons of ozone each day. That means,In six days, we [the wine industry] have cleaned up all the ethanol in the atmosphere we contributed, and after that, we start cleaning up everyone else's pollution.
Thus, he concluded, the uptake of CO2 and air pollutants by California vineyards far exceeds the production of possible gaseous pollutants and CO2 by wineries;