A New York view of the wine world

newyorker_viewoftheworldRecently, someone asked me, “so just how big is Burgundy, say, compared to Manhattan?” Excellent question! Herewith, some of the world’s wine regions and their whole or fractional Manhattan equivalents:

Manhattan is the smallest of the five boroughs of New York City at 14,478 acres (22.6 sq. mi.; all sources appear after the jump.)
* Romanee-Conti (DRC) vineyard: 4.4 acres, about half of Bryant Park
* Burgundy: 70,470 acres or about five Manhattans
* Champagne: 86,500 acres or about six Manhattans
* Bordeaux: 300,000 acres or about 21 Manhattans
* Barossa (Australia): 13,256 acres planted or about Manhattan minus Inwood
* Napa (California): 44,000 acres planted, or about three Manhattans
* Mendoza (Argentina): 360,972 acres or about 25 Manhattans
* Maipo (Chile): 30,000 acres or about two Manhattans (or, the Bronx)
* Languedoc-Rousillon (France): 528,000 acres or about 37 Manhattans


All vineyard sources are from the Oxford Companion to Wine, Third Edition with the exception of Barossa which was here. The Burgundy figure includes Chablis, the Maconnais, and the Cote Chalonnaise; sadly, no quick acreage was available on the Cote D’Or (or Barolo) so feel free to add it in the comments. The Manhattan acres came from: Manhattan: Long, Luman H.(ed). The World Almanac and Book of Facts: 1967. New York, NY: Newspaper Enterprise Association, Inc., 1966: 305.

21 Responses to “A New York view of the wine world”


  1. After 10 Manhattans, Bordeaux might even taste good…


  2. I like the reference for size, thanks.


  3. Cote d’Or – 1.4 times Manhattan and alot more flavor.


  4. Jura vineyards – only 0.3 (or 30% of) Manhattan so no wonder it’s hard for New Yorkers to get hold of any (especially Vin Jaune which is under 3% of Jura total production!).


  5. Bordeaux is 123,000 hectares, ie nearer 300,000 acres or nearly 21 Manhattans


  6. Whoops, Charlie, my mistake. Corrected above.

    Greg – don’t you mean a lot BETTER flavor? 😉


  7. Yes more better!


  8. Hi all

    I once calculated that if you bottled a full Spanish still wine vintage (I think I used 2006) in typical 0.75 cl wine bottles and put one in top of the other… you would go round the world 17 times and to the moon… and back!!

    Juan


  9. Napa has 45,230 planted acres according to CASS (http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/index.asp)

    maybe the Oxford companion number was hectares not acres?


  10. Great geeky post!

    According to the Vineyard Handbook http://www.wineschool.com/buystuff.htm
    which is great for this sort of thing:

    Le Montrachet has 17.75 acres – a little smaller than Battery Park (20 acres)

    Barolo has 3,600 acres – approx 4.5 Central Parks (843 acres)


  11. What about chilean Maipo Valley?


  12. I was also going to point out that the Napa Valley figure is way too low – with more than 45,000 acres currently planted out of an AVA of 225,300 acres approved for planting. And Mendoza is now up to nearly 400,000 acres planted.


  13. Sorry, again, folks but for the Napa figure as for the Bordeaux, I had dropped in the figure for hectares instead of acres. But all corrected now! We’re crowdsourcing this! Who said you can’t trust what you read on the internets!

    John – I added Maipo, which the OCW says is 30,000 acres.

    What about the Mosel?

    Btw, someone referred to this post as NYC…AOC — brilliant! Now if only we had an art department to lay all this out graphically…


  14. All you provincial Manhattanites be gone: Brooklyn is almost twice the size of Manhattan, about the size of Maipo, and just short of the size of Napa!


  15. Plus, Brooklyn is where the first early grapes had been planted by the Dutch.


  16. Let us not forget the beautiful and diverse Sonoma County. At about 60,300 acres of grapes planted it is just over four Manhattans. Please come visit some time!


  17. And of course the Santa Lucia Highlands appellation, with just over 5,500 acres under cultivation. That makes 6.5 Central Parks (and a whole lot prettier).


  18. This in from a Spanish enthusiast:

    Rioja: 63,593 hectares of planted vineyards (10.85 Manhattans)
    Ribera del Duero: 20,500 hectares of planted vineyards (3.50 Manhattans)
    Priorat: 1,767 hectares of planted vineyards (0.30 Manhattans)

    (One ha. = 2.47 acres)


  19. Just want to say that this is one of the most interesting discussions I’ve seen on the subject of wine in a long, long time.


  20. Pennsylvania
    15,000 total planted grape acreage of which 1500 are wine grapes


  21. […] Dr Vino for pulling these stats together. That Burgundy (70,470) acres is  about five Manhattans but […]


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