AVAs and appellations
Decanter recently reported on the newest American Viticultural Area (AVA):
Washington’s Rattlesnake Hills will soon become this Pacific Northwest state’s ninth federal appellation.
Appellation?! Journalists, wine makers, and regulators who call AVAs “appellations” are only muddying the already confusing use of terms on wine labels. AVAs only delimit the growing area and don’t control any other aspects of production that French appellations control, such as yields, varietals, and a final blind tasting by a committee of producers. I realize that it is common parlance but it is inaccurate and one of my pet peeves. Sure AVA is a clunky term that deserves its place in the Boring American Acronym Hall of Fame along with SUV, HOV, etc. But if they wanted to call it something else then they should have, um, called it something else.
Whew, got that off my chest! Now just how much delimitation is the new Rattlesnake Hills going to do? “The 68,500 acre (27,721 hectares) appellation has 1,500 acres (607 hectares) under vines.” Whoa! That’s a lotta land–with few vines! This shows another problem with AVAs: they often are more about promise than past performance. Fortunately I’m not the only one who feels this way:
Robin Pollard, the Washington Wine Commission’s executive director, terms the hills a ‘unique viticultural area.’ Richard Boushey of Boushey Vineyards in Grandview, Washington, disagrees.
Urging Washington to reject the AVA petition, Boushey argued: ‘I know of no regional style, specific variety or type of wine that is unique to this proposed area. The granting of this proposal would confuse consumers and undermine the existing Yakima Valley Appellation.’
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While we’re on the subject of AVAs and appellations, I just stumbled on the transcript of a punchy and provocative interview with Rene Renou, the President of the wine committee at INAO, the French office of appellations (and yes, I mean appellations). Check it out here.
tags: wine | appellations | AVA | AOC
On March 7th, 2006 at 6:32 pm ,tduchesne wrote:
Hey doc,
speaking of lots of land and little vines, there is a new AVA in Texas, the Texoma AVA….in north Texas near the Red River.
On March 7th, 2006 at 7:54 pm ,dr. vino wrote:
Ah yes, who could forget the big Texoma!
On March 8th, 2006 at 12:50 am ,Bradley Cooper, Winemaker wrote:
There’s talk about setting up some GIs (geographical indicators) up our way in the fabulous Okanagan Valley. There are some regional restraints on what you can put on the label but nothing ordained from those who must be obeyed just yet.