“Regenerative,” “sustainable,” “natural” — they’ve been stuck on so many bottles that a shopper has no way to tell which ones mean anything.
Category: Islands and Valleys
Mendocino County is wine country’s best-kept secret, and the proof is in the map. Tucked into one rural county are a baker’s dozen of distinct American Viticultural Areas — thirteen federally drawn appellations, each its own argument about soil, fog, elevation and grape. They range from the smallest AVA in the entire country to a scatter of vineyards perched on ridgetops so high they sit above the clouds — islands in a sea of fog. Over the next thirteen months we’ll walk the county appellation by appellation: the ground, the climate, the grapes that found a home there, and the growers betting on them. One a month, first of the month.