11/19/08 New AVA

New AVA. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Paul Beveridge, winemaker for Wilridge Winery is part of a group that is in the final stages of making the application for the new Naches Heights AVA. AVA stands for American Viticulture Area and in order for an area to receive the designation it first need to be different. BEVERIDGE: What's great with Naches Heights is we're surrounded by 300 foot cliffs so we're very distinct from everywhere else so it's really a slam dunk under the TTB regulations that will get the AVA and what I didn't know until I started looking into it is that it doesn't matter how many acres of grapes are planted there yet. That's not a factor so if you've got a distinctive area and you've got a couple of vineyards up there, that's enough to get started. But what is so special about calling an area an AVA? BEVERIDGE: You go back to the system in France. They were the first and the whole concept of terroir that the wine grapes should express where it is from. If you have a Cabernet Sauvignon from Bordeaux or one from Chile or one from Yakima Valley, they should taste different. And there are discriminating palates that can actually tell the difference. BEVERIDGE: And so from a marketing standpoint, we're the only people who can make Naches Heights wines. So you get that distinctive marketing benefit and uniqueness. So it's kind of a bit like a trademark. It has some of that same value although you share it with all the other farmers up there. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.