Beer-brewing Dutch try their hand at making wine
Vineyard capacity is increasing thanks to new grape varieties that can cope with bad weather
Too cold, too wet and not enough sunlight: for centuries, the beer-brewing Netherlands has been snubbed as a good place to plant vineyards and make decent wines - until now.
Thanks to new cross-breed grape varieties, mainly from Germany, the Dutch wine industry is blooming on the back of these new and hardier cultivars, as they are known, enabling it to increase vineyard capacity more than six-fold in the last eight years.
"These [new] varieties resist mildew diseases better, their grapes ripen quicker, they are more adapted to the Dutch climate," 55-year-old winemaker Job Huisman said on his farm outside the small eastern town of Drempt.
Classic cultivars like Riesling, Auxerrois and Pinot Gris have always had a rough time in Dutch conditions except in the extreme south, said Huisman as he and his wife Neeltje, 56, lifted their glasses to sample their latest harvest - a white semi-sweet made from grapes grown on their two-hectare vineyard.
The Dutch wine industry gained momentum in the early 1990s when new grape varieties were being developed, said Dutch Winemakers' Guild spokesman Theo Mellenberg.
Among the most popular in the Netherlands today are the Johanniter and Solaris cultivars, which entered the market in 2000 and 2004 respectively.