Pictured above are wines from Warren Hills AVA (Alba Vineyard) and Outer Coastal Plain AVA (Bellview Winery)
What is an AVA?
AVA stands for American Viticultural Area. What does this mean? An AVA is a specified grape-growing area that has been recognized and accepted as having distinct geographic features and whose boundaries are specified and approved by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) at the request of wineries and other parties. It is incumbent upon the petitioner to provide significant evidence that the area proposed is uniquely conducive to the production of grapes grown (climate, soil, distance from large bodies of water, elevation, etc.). There are over 200 AVAs in the United States. It should be noted that in order to use the designation of an AVA on the label at least 85% of the grapes must come from that region.
New Jersey presently has three AVAs: The Outer Coastal Plains (located in the southern part of the state and by far the largest in acreage and in the number of wineries within it); Warren Hills (in the northwestern region of the state) and Central Delaware Valley AVA (covering parts of Mercer and Hunterdon counties near the Delaware River, where there are no NJ wineries presently operating). A fourth AVA has been proposed and tentatively approved, but not yet officially declared. It will encompass the extreme southeastern part of the state and include wineries in Cape May County and classified as Cape May Peninsula.
Those wineries which do not fall into one of these AVAs can be classified as “New Jersey Wine,” without a specific AVA classification or appellation. Given the many layers of bureaucracy involved (including geographical, agricultural, geological, meteorological and political to name a few) you should not judge the absence of an AVA as impugning the quality of the grapes grown there or the wines made there. In fact, there are a number of excellent wineries which do not presently fall into one of the existing AVAs in the state. Rather one should consider this a process. When you consider the differences in the length of the growing season around the state and the differences in soil type, closeness or distance to large bodies of water (which mitigate the extreme temperatures produced by New Jersey winters and summers) it is easy to see the need to continue to revisit the AVAs in the state, especially as the number of wineries continue to grow and prosper.
In the meantime we can continue to celebrate the uniqueness of each of New Jersey’s wineries and enjoy the fruits of their labors.
A good source to keep up with the status of the newest AVA in New Jersey (and most things happening related to the state’s wine) is the Garden State Wine Growers Association website:
Of course there will also be more about this here.
Visited a New Jersey wine lately? Tried a NJ wine recently? Share your experience here.
Cheers!
