"This is very old wine. I hope you will like it." Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula in the movie Dracula (1931)

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Most people have little idea.

An AVA is an American Viticultural Area.  That means it has been recognized and defined by Federal regulators to include a specific geographical area as a wine-growing region.  AVA’s were first established by law in 1973, the regulations governing them were finalized in 1978 by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the regulations became mandatory in 1983.

What does all that mean to wineries and wine-drinkers? 

The idea of the AVA was to establish standards to protect consumers and producers alike.  The regulations control what a winery needs to do if it wants to label wine as being from an AVA.  For example, if a wine is described as “Napa Valley” on the label, 85% of the fruit must be grown in that AVA.  Further regulations control the use of the names of states (75% within), and counties (75%), multiples (like Napa-Sonoma) and a host of other conditions.  To label a wine as “Estate Bottled”, the winery must own or control  vineyards in a common AVA from which the grapes come, and must handle the entire process of making and bottling the wine on their own premises.

The AVA is not necessarily an indication of quality.  The regulations do not allow for the government to test and grade the quality of wine the way they do eggs or meat.  It is an indication of where the grapes came from, and generally indicates areas that have historically grown grapes for wine and have a particular defining characteristic.  As long as the interested parties in an area can provide the data to persuade the regulators to approve their petition, almost anything can be a designated.  The process is long and expensive – you need work from historians, soil experts, meteorologists, lawyers and others to detail the AVA and shepherd your petition through the system.  The costs of that add up quickly, but well over 100 AVAs have been designated since the regulations went into effect.

Some AVAs are incredibly small.  The Cole Ranch AVA in California is only 150 acres.  Some are large almost beyond belief.  The Ohio River Valley AVA is 16,640,000 acres in size, sprawling across four states.  Political boundaries are not considered in the definition, which are always tied to geographical features.  At least a dozen AVAs occupy parts of more than one state.

For the wineries and vineyards, an AVA can be a valuable marketing tool.  They can use it to create an identity for their wine.  Napa Valley is a prime example.  There is probably no area in the country more famed for its wine than Napa, and in particular for Cabernet Sauvignon.  As a result, Napa Valley wine can command higher prices, Napa Valley vineyards sell for more dollars per acre, and the tourism trade in Napa flourishes.

The AVA regulations promote and protect that for the wineries.  People come to rely on the name, to recognize it, and to look for it when they go to the wine store.  At the same time, the AVA regulations protect the winery by preventing others from using the name Napa Valley on their labels if they can’t meet the criteria, thus removing unfair competitors.

Wine-drinkers benefit by that protection as well.  The AVA regulations allow the consumer to buy with confidence, knowing that wine that says Napa Valley actually came from the Napa AVA.  No need to wonder where the grapes were actually grown.  With so many other decisions and questions involved when you buy wine, who needs to wonder about that origin?

The AVA will also allow you to make certain broad characterizations.  If you like a particular wine from an AVA and know of several similar ones you have tasted, you might place more confidence in purchasing a similar but unknown wine from that same AVA.  Nothing can guarantee satisfaction here, but you may be able to form some general rules for what you find appealing.

Clearly some AVAs have more prestige than others.  Napa Valley has more recognition than Warren Hills (in New Jersey), and probably always will.  But the AVA designation on a bottle can be an important signpost for you in your selection process.