I love South American wines and recently wines from vineyards in Argentina and Chile have been growing in popularity. But now a new Southern Cone nation is getting into the wine business, Brazil. Part of the reason is that new technology is allowing lands that were thought unsuitable for grape growing to become viable.

“For years we have drawn two bands around the globe, roughly between latitudes 30 and 50, to denote those parts of it deemed suitable for viticulture,” Jancis Robinson, a well-known British wine expert, wrote of the new phenomenon on her Web site. “But all this is changing fast. Advances in refrigeration and irrigation techniques, not to mention much greater control over how and when vines grow, have opened up to the grapevine vast tracts of the world previously thought unsuitable for viticulture.”

I haven’t tasted wines from Brazil, yet but I am certainly looking forward to.

Via / The New York Times (Registration Required)