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Originally posted by DonVito

Mmaser, Marc, you'll notice that I said, "If I'm not mistaken..."  I think Shiraz comes from Australia, whether the grape is the same as the Syrah grape or not.  You still have differences in climate, etc. between the two countries.  If you look back at history, you'll find that vast majority of the wine from France, since the 1850's, is genetically linked with the grapes from the States, due to a blight from the Phylloxera aphid, which coincidentally also came from the States.  As such the vines from the States had become resistant to said aphid, and was grafted to what was left of the French vineyards.

Very good!  Not many people know that!  Actually it's not genetically linked so much as grafted stock.  In the 1850s, in an attempt to make better french-american hybrid cultivars, american root stock was transported to France along with the nematode hitchhikers (Phylloxera).  This resulted in mass contamination with no known way to stop them.  The only way limit the damage was to graft all French vines on american root stock as they still do today.  American root stock is resistant to the nematode.  The original french vines w/o root stock can only be found now in Chile as the nematode cannot grow in sandy soil.  

Terroir goes a long way to determining a wines final character so regardless of genetic identity, these wines are distict and can stand on their own.  It's amazing the diversity of taste from one area to another.

-Marc  

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