Every State, Ranked by Beer

[John Galt]

[Darkhorse]

[Darkhorse]

[John Galt]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/bus ... /12831779/

german beer purity laws are to blame. they are almost 500 years old now. they are now a hindrance and americans keep on getting better and better beers, while german beers are just the same. soon we'll even americanize the german beer halls. 15 years there'll be yardhouses open all over germany where they can go get their craft american brews and some american food, like hamburgers and apple pie

[Darkhorse]

[Professor]

Similar thing with American wines. For the longest time, French wines were considered the best in the world. But, Napa has better growing conditions and the same varietals, which mean that the wine from Napa is actually considered better than French stuff more and more often.

[Spider]

France actually suffered a devastating grape blight back in the day, and they had to use American vines, which were more resistant to the blight, to graft in to replace their old vines. So...the snobbery has always been pretty silly, at least on the basis of the fruit itself.

The serious wine country is Italy, anyways. Heard somewhere that the wine that they distill down into spirits alone is larger than the entire N American annual wine production.

[Spider]

[Mr.Bill]

California wines have been the best in the world for the past 20+ years.. People who don't know better still say the French and Italian wines are the best, but they're not. It's cool and yes the snobs still say European wines are the best. Obviously some are still very good, but the absolute best now is California wines.. No contest.

[Spider]

Depends on the type of wine, IMO. California does great with sauvignon blanc, cabernet and chardonnay, Oregon does better with the pinots, washington does better with Riesling and gewurtz, Australia kicks ass with Syrah/Shiraz, and France is still pretty dominant with a lot of sparklers and old school burgundy blend stuff. Or so its said. Italy has the best sparkling wine, imo, and definately the best fortified wine, tied only with spain. Italy also rocks the rose. Well, and the sangiovese.

Hard to pick an area that is objectively the best. I agree though that French wine is wildly overestimated...as consistently shows up in blind tastings. I've never had a french champagne I've been even remotely impressed with. And people go on and on about that stuff. American sparklers are way better, at least IMO.

France's wine industry is so inflexible that they are suffering in much the same way german beer is. Self-limited by self-aggrandizement. Who cares how your great gran-cester from century X did it? Be creative. Roll with the times. Don't stifle yourselves with dogmatism.