11/18/08 Preparing for a New AVA

Preparing for New AVA. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. It takes a special area to receive designation as an American Viticulture Area or AVA. Paul Beveridge is the winemaker for Wilridge Winery and is in the process of making the application for the Naches Heights AVA. BEVERIDGE: The key factor, the government has all these standards; the standard is that basically that your site has to be distinctive. So you've got to distinguish it from other areas and in some of Washington State that's been difficult, like even the Columbia Valley AVA, the original one that covers most of eastern Washington. Beveridge says there is something that makes the Naches Heights area special. BEVERIDGE: It's a Andesite flow. It's a lava rock that came down from the goat rocks a million years ago and it came down the Tieton River valley and stopped right at Yakima. So it's one of the things that pinches all the rivers together there. And for the last million years Mt. St. Helens has been going off and the wind has been blowing and they've got a low soil, a loam up there that fills in the basins of the andesite. It also has good airflow and drainage that Beverage says is very conducive to growing just about any kind of grapes. BEVERIDGE: I planted a vineyard up there two seasons ago so I just finished second leaf and I planted 10 acres to 22 varieties to kind of see what's going to work best up there and then I have an 85 acre site so we'll plant more of it once we get a better idea what's going to work. More tomorrow on the Naches Heights AVA. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.