The Netherlands is a country in Northern Europe, often referred to as "Holland". The latter is the name of the former county in the western Netherlands where the key cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague are located.
Holland is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which includes Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, its overseas island territories in the Caribbean. To complicate matters further, the demonym for the Netherlands is "Dutch".
The country is bordered by Belgium to the South, Germany to the east and the Nordzee (North Sea) to the north and west.
Historically, the Dutch produced very little wine - the conditions were simply too cool and wet. A few pioneers established vineyards in the 1970s, and were generally regarded as eccentrics, both at home and abroad.
But viticulture has become increasingly viable due to Climate change.
The hot summer of 2018 produced the best wines produced to date, with record yields.
Today, the wines are gaining recognition at international wine shows. The most successful estates, such as Apostelhoeve in Limburg (one of the pioneers), are selling their wines rapidly. The sector benefits from a strong demand for cool climate wines.
White muscat is a white grape variety of Greek origin. Present in several Mediterranean vineyards, it has several synonyms such as muscat de Die, muscat blanc and frontignac. In France, it occupies a little less than 7,000 ha out of a total of 45,000 ha worldwide. Its young shoots are downy. Its youngest leaves are shiny, bronzed and scabrous. The berries and bunches of this variety are all medium-sized. The flesh of the berries is juicy, sweet and firm. Muscat à petits grains has a second ripening period and buds early in the year. It is moderately vigorous and must be pruned short. It likes poor, stony slopes. This variety is often exposed to spring frosts. It fears mildew, wasps, grape worms, court-noué, grey rot and powdery mildew. Muscat à petits grains is used to make rosé wines and dry white wines. Orange, brown sugar, barley sugar and raisins are the known aromas of these wines.
