Careful with your AVAs

[tomstevenson]

Hi Bucko, I wondered when you'd put your oar in! Trial and error is dynamically linked to the number of people willing to experiment, a willingness to share results with others and to study and learn from those in other regions, not to mention consumer reaction and the means by which growers and winemakers receive any feedback. It is true that the bordelais have benefitted from more than 200 years of trial and error, but with a multiplicity of wine columns, television, radio and the internet, not to mention a vast infrastructure of retail outlets, appellation in the current era will register themselves one way or the other over a much smaller timescale. I mentioned 20 years off the top of my head; it could be 10 or 30. The point, however, is not to allow the reputations gained and lost through trial and error to bog down an appellation by rules and regulations. I have tasted the odd illicit Chardonnay from Bordeaux, but wouldn't it be wonderful if we could taste a Chardonnay from a top Graves cru, a Pinot Noir from Pomerol, a Merlot from the Cote de Beaune, and a Cabernet Sauvignon from the Cote de Nuits?

[This message has been edited by tomstevenson (edited 02-20-99).]