Careful with your AVAs

[Jerry D Mead]

Perhaps I worded badly...I meant that the new AVA's were at least as meaningful as what has come before.

It is the ATF which claims that AVAs should be based on the equivalent of unique "terroir" and then continuously ignores its own policies for political expediency.

Personally, I would have prefered (too late now) a system whereby groups of vintners banded together and made their own rules for their appellations, and to be a member of the group and use their seal or insignia or whatever, would have to agree to play by the rules. But if you wanted to be a lone wolf and plant Zin where everyone else has agreed to plant Cabernet, you could do it sans the seal.

I don't want American vintners to ever lose the ability to experiment with new varieties, nor be restricted as to yields. The marketplace should decide those things.

Back to the newsletter, I was basically sticking the needle in the Napa folks for picking on someone else's appellation for the very weaknesses of its own.

JDM