More sub-appellations for Russian River Valley?

Interesting blog post from Steve Heimoff:
Time to sub-appellate the Russian River Valley?

There’s already the Green Valley AVA as a sub-appellation. What do people think about adding more?

You hear much more about splitting up the Sonoma Coast AVA (could this become a separate or sub-appellation of Sonoma Coast? West Sonoma Coast Vintners) but not so much with Russian River Valley, which is also a pretty large AVA.

.

I could not agree more with Heimoff. He first hit at this in his book “A Wine Journey along the Russian River”. In the summer take a drive from Windsor to Occidental and any Joe could tell you that there are huge temperature differences in the 10-15 miles traveled.

Well, you can pretty much go ten miles anywhere in SoCo and get different weather. That doesn’t dismiss the argument, but I wonder if it just confuses the consumer more.

Cut it up. The consumer will catch on.

I agree. Part of the maturation process of U.S. wine is (or will be some day) more specific appellations. RRV is soooo 1990’s.

Putting aside the value of the RRV brand, which no one would want to give up, I cannot see the value in this proposal. The purpose of AVAa is to represent a geographical area where growing conditions such as climate, soil, elevation, and physical features are distinctive. I find more in common with the areas suggested than distinctive and for that, I believe sub-appellations would not provide value to the consumer.

You can argue Arista’s Estate vineyard is different than Allen Vineyard and is different than Williams Selyem’s Estate vineyard, which all are within a stone’s throw of each other. However, the differences are not as distinctive as they are in common.

Rather than exert resources on this initiative, we need to do away with the ubiquitous Sonoma Coast appellation, where you can label RRV wines as Sonoma Coast, if you wish…

Regards,
Steve

I don’t think I’d be for it. Even though our Keefer Ranch and Graham Family vineyard Pinots say Green Valley of Russian River Valley on the label, I always tell people the wines are from Russian River Valley if they ask. Too many blank stares when I say Green Valley. And truthfully, I don’t really care about finer AVA distinctions since we focus on making single vineyard designated wines. The fact that Keefer Ranch and Graham Family are in Green Valley is not really that important to me - it’s that they’re Keefer Ranch and Graham Family that I care about. And for our appelation blends, RRV is fine with me.

I agree with Steve that the much bigger issue is Sonoma Coast. But even with that AVA, I’d only like to see it broken into 2 pieces - the TRUE Sonoma Coast and then (maybe) the Petaluma Gap.

I’m just not sure more AVAs serve the consumer. It often just gives the producers in that area another “reason” to claim they make the best wine - which gets tiresome.

I agree- giving the consumer more specific info has never helped them before.

It isn’t necessarily about more info - it’s about info they can use. We could create a whole set of onion layers of AVAs and sub-AVAs, but at some point you end up with a single vineyard. So what would be the point of all the intervening layers? And if you’re making AVA designated wines, I’m not sure Green Valley as a descriptor would necessarily be more meaningful than RRV. It might, but not always. I guess I just think the macro and micro levels as they are now are good enough - except in some extreme cases like Sonoma Coast. But even then I’d caution about too fine a breakdown.

What happened to Holdredge’s post? I thought he had a valid point about moving appellation boundaries around ala some congressional districts.

The Big H was claiming that he wanted an AVA around his and any tasting rooms within 49 feet of his front door…if the first name starts with “G”.

Whoever wrote his comment ( he seems to be busy on Saturday nites) makes sense to me, actually… Something about pheromonal issues…I don’t have any of course so I’m not sure what the [t]issue is.

Heimoff’s not wrong - they are all different. So what? Brian’s “onion layer” metaphor is apt – where would we have all of this quantification stop, and to what end? Now, we should acknowledge each and every little climatological or geographical anomaly within an AVA? This could get a little crazy, as we hear why Grower Bob thinks his “Middle Reach, Upper East Swale, Vines 3-37, 14oz Clusters, Right-Hand Picked, Limited Bottling” deserves its own sub-AVA? Could we get a little more anal retentive?

More appellations will serve the enthusiast (about 15% of the buying public), while the remaining 85% of the buying public, i.e., “consumers,” will only be confused with more information that they don’t want or can’t use. If everyone wants to expend limited resources in pursuing the goal of sub-appellation differentiation with little real return benefit, then go for it. Will it truly benefit your business?

I would agree that the Sonoma Coast AVA is probably a project that would give more immediate return and benefit the largest number of potential customers.

In thinking more about more AVAs, I think I’d argue for new AVAs when the areas are geographically isolated. For instance, the Sta. Rita Hills area is geographically separated from the rest of Santa Barbara County (and its former AVA designation of Santa Ynez) in that it’s two, distinct valleys. Napa and Sonoma are separated by a mountain range. I guess I run into a problem when there’s a contiguous area that gets subdivided, like Rutherford and Oakville. Is northern Oakville really different than southern Rutherford? Same issue with Green Valley and Russian River.

I’ve always figured a lot of creating new AVAs has to do with how much value a new AVA will be to the wineries sourcing fruit from them. So I’d guess we’ll see a “West Sonoma Coast” or similar AVA before a “Petaluma Gap” one, since I think Sonoma Coast has more value as an appellation than Petaluma Gap (though that could change in time). But I think the growers on the far Sonoma Coast may gain more value by creating their own AVA to differentiate themselves from the rest of the large and varied Sonoma Coast AVA. I’m not sure whether more value is created by creating a “Middle Reach” and similar AVAs within Russian River, since Russian River Valley AVA is quite highly-regarded as it is.

Re: the Sonoma Coast, I could get behind this more easily (not that they need MY help). But what’s the motivation for someone to want to split up regions this way? Let’s say Sonoma Coast get sub-divided into Occidental, Taylor Lane, Ft. Ross, Cazadero, Bodega Bay, Annapolis, etc. Sure, it’s more exclusivity for the grower, but I just don’t see how that translates to real/perceived value in the marketplace upon availability. OTOH, maybe immediate results are not what proponents would be after here. [shrug]. I’m sure the general consumer would be more than confused. And, since most geeks already know the skinny on these potential sub-AVAs…again…where is the value?

True, isn’t that really one of the problems with subs? There’s at least some subjectivity, and the boundaries (if settled upon) have been politicized to some degree.

Whether Sonoma Coast needs further definition can be debated (as mentioned, defining a true Sonoma Coast and Petaluma Gap AVA would be warranted, imo). However, I believe the one aspect of the Sonoma Coast AVA that must be changed and can not be debated is the fact RRV wines can be labeled Sonoma Coast. I believe that is absurd.

Then again, I also believe bottle weight would be a valuable piece of information…

Regards,
Steve

The prevailing sentiment expressed in this thread seems to be that RRV is specific enough, while the much larger Sonoma Coast AVA needs a split.

Russian River Valley AVA is 155,000 acres = 62,700 hectares.

Burgundy is 68,000 acres = 27,700 hectares, and this includes Cote de Nuits, Cote de Beaune, Chablis, Cote Chalonaise, and Macon… substantially less than half the size of RRV but divided into 100 official appellations.

The general feeling that “RRV” is specific enough indicates, IMO, just how early California is on the learning curve in terms of discovering (and celebrating) the distinctiveness of the various districts of this huge and diverse region.

As for how easily the consumers get confused, I think we have a chicken versus egg situation. There are hundreds of wineries, far too many for most any consumer to get a real handle on. And in CA, the growers and makers seem reluctant to help the consumer out with designations indicating local geology and climate conditions that influence the wine. And so it is all left to marketing, and wine critic points on a scale of 100 points, most colorful shelf talker wins.

In France, most casual, non-geek wine consumers can make a rational choice (I did not say a perfect choice) between Chablis, Chassagne, and Macon Villages without knowing the individual producers, without knowing the Parker points, based upon the general character of the appellation and the vintage. It will happen here some day, and I say, lets get after it.