Like other Italian grape varieties, particularly red ones, Sangiovese was taken west, to both North and South America, by Italian emigrants. In South America it is best known in Argentina, where there were 2,000 ha/5,000 acres in 2012, mainly in Mendoza province, producing wine that few Tuscan tasters would recognize as Sangiovese.
In California, however, international recognition for the quality of Supertuscans brought a sudden increase in Sangiovese’s popularity in the late 1980s and 1990s. By 2003, acreage had increased to nearly 3,000 but this had fallen to 1,800 acres by 2012, perhaps partly because California Sangiovese, typically more fruit-driven than the prototype, failed to establish a strong identity. antinori, unsurprisingly, persists with the variety at their Antica winery on Atlas Peak above Napa Valley.
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