I am a bit of a stats nerd. I just love checking out my instincts with evidence of statistics.
One book I like to use is Which Winegrape Varieties are Grown Where?
Verdelho
One of the surprising things I learnt when reading this book (all 752 pages) is the global distribution of Verdelho. About two thirds of the worlds acreage of this variety is in Australia, mostly in NSW. Portugal of course has most of the rest, and there is some in the US, but virtually none elsewhere.
The Portuguese use it to make Madeira on the eponymous island, as well as medium dry table wine. In Australia it is used in warmer areas to produce fruit dry or off dry whites that most wine critics give the thumbs down. But the public love the variety as it remains in the top 20 varieties grown here.
When I first started collecting data for the Vinodiversity website I counted Verdelho as an alternative variety, on the basis that it was relatively unknown outside NSW. There were just too many producers to justify leaving it in the database, but I have kept this page about Verdelho in Australia.
Hard to believe that so much of world’s production of Verdalho is NSW
Yes Alison, it flies under the radar, but plenty of people are drinking it.