Crystal Springs of Napa Valley has officially been named an American Viticulture Area (AVA), a designation denoting region-specific appellation labelling that can appear on American wines. Steven Burgess, the former owner of Burgess Cellars, who has historically had contentious relationships with residents and his former winery’s new ownership, spearheaded efforts to create the Crystal Springs appellation.
While this marks the first official Napa Valley appellation since the adoption of the Coombsville AVA in 2011, some contest that it may continue a trend of consumer confusion across California’s wines and regions.
In recent years, new AVAs have popped up throughout the Golden State, primarily to solve issues with current AVAs either being too small or too large to represent an area’s wines. This has led to the establishment of both sub-AVAs, like the West Sonoma Coast within the larger Sonoma Coast AVA, and larger AVAs, such as the San Luis Obispo Coast, to encompass an area of many smaller AVAs.
For consumers, these new labelling categories can lead to confusion and, sometimes, disagreement among wineries since they now have more legal options for on-bottle appellation labelling.
Most of the area encompassing Crystal Springs in Napa Valley is below the existing Howell Mountain appellation. Crystal Springs is excluded from Howell Mountain because the AVA only allows vineyards with a minimum elevation of 1400ft (427m). A significant delineation between the two regions is Napa’s fog. Howell Mountain sits above the fog line, while the new Crystal Springs appellation is blanketed in and shaped by the maritime fog’s cooling influence.
Burgess and the Napa Valley Vintners were instrumental in creating a new AVA in an area comprising only 93ha of planted vineyards. Wines from the region were previously labelled Napa Valley.
Viader is the largest wine brand operating within the new Crystal Springs designation. Owner Delia Viader stated in an interview last year that her brand will not change its on-bottle labels to accommodate the new AVA.
Carlton McCoy, Jr., CEO of Lawrence Wine Estates, told Decanter: ‘We are elated about the new Crystal Springs AVA. The Sorenson Vineyard that we own at Burgess Cellars has been a celebrated vineyard for almost a century as the sole source of fruit for Napa’s historic icon, Souverain. This area is truly unique and has earned its own AVA.’
Cabernet Sauvignon from the region has relatively similar notes to that of the adjoining Howell Mountain AVA, with Burgess stating in comments to the San Francisco Chronicle that the wines in the region have ‘extremely dark, complex flavours and rich aromatics’.
