What does AVA mean on an American wine label?

AVA stands for American Viticultural Area, a legally defined grape-growing region such as Napa Valley or Willamette Valley. To put the name on a label, at least 85 per cent of the grapes must come from inside it. Unlike a French appellation, an AVA sets no rules about which varieties you plant or how you make the wine. It marks a place, not a recipe.

What is the difference between Napa and Sonoma?

Napa Valley is small, narrow and warm, and it is overwhelmingly about Cabernet Sauvignon. Sonoma County is much bigger and far more varied. Parts of it sit close to the Pacific and get pulled cold by fog, which suits Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, while warmer inland valleys grow Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon. Sonoma offers more styles; Napa offers more focus.

Is white Zinfandel the same as Zinfandel?

Same grape, very different wine. Zinfandel is a full-bodied red, brambly and peppery, usually high in alcohol. White Zinfandel is a pale pink wine made by running the juice off the skins early, and it is typically made in a sweet, lower-alcohol style. If you have only ever met the pink version, a red Zinfandel will surprise you.

Does the United States make good Riesling?

Yes, and mostly in places that look nothing like California. The Finger Lakes in New York State grow Riesling beside deep glacial lakes that soften brutal winters and stretch the autumn, giving wines with piercing acidity and lime and green apple flavours. Washington's Columbia Valley also grows a lot of Riesling, often in a rounder, riper style.

United States Wine: Regions, Grapes & Styles

American wine did not grow steadily. It started over. Prohibition, from 1920 to 1933, banned the making and selling of alcohol and left the industry in ruins; by the time it was repealed, only a few hundred bonded wineries were still standing, and a wine map that had once included Missouri, Ohio and New York shrank towards California. The recovery took forty years and one afternoon in Paris. On 24 May 1976, at a blind tasting later nicknamed the Judgment of Paris, a Chardonnay from Chateau Montelena, up at the northern end of the Napa Valley, and a Napa Cabernet Sauvignon from Stag's Leap Wine Cellars came top of flights that also held white Burgundy and classed-growth Bordeaux. It changed how the world looked at New World wine.

Officially, American wine is organised by AVAs, or American Viticultural Areas. The first was Augusta, Missouri, approved in 1980; Napa Valley followed in 1981. An AVA marks out a place and nothing more. Unlike a French appellation, it does not dictate which grapes you plant or how you make the wine. Wine is now made in all fifty states, though California accounts for around four fifths of the total.

What American wine tastes like

Most American wine tastes ripe. Dependable sun means grapes reach full maturity, so fruit flavours come forward and generous, tannins feel rounded rather than austere, and alcohol often sits a little higher than in European equivalents.

A classic Napa Valley or Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon gives blackcurrant and black cherry wrapped in sweet spice and vanilla from new oak, finishing soft and plush. Zinfandel is brambly and peppery, sometimes almost jammy. Chardonnay covers an enormous range, from buttery and oak-scented to lean, taut and citrusy. But the cooler corners tell a different story: Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley is paler, tart-cherried and earthy, and Riesling from the Finger Lakes is bracingly acidic, all lime and green apple, either bone dry or gently off-dry.

Signature grapes of United States

Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay are the workhorses, planted almost everywhere and at every level of ambition. Pinot Noir belongs to the cool sites: Oregon's Willamette Valley, the fog-touched edges of Sonoma. Riesling belongs to the Finger Lakes and to Washington. Zinfandel is the grape America made its own, and DNA work traced it back to the Croatian variety Tribidrag, the same grape Italy calls Primitivo. Warm regions such as Paso Robles also lean on Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre, and on the dark, tannic Petite Sirah.

Wine regions of United States

Six American regions have their own pages here. Napa Valley in California is the Cabernet Sauvignon heartland, narrow and warm. Neighbouring Sonoma County is larger and more varied, with fog-cooled Pinot Noir and Chardonnay alongside old-vine Zinfandel. Paso Robles, further south on the Central Coast, is hot by day and startlingly cold by night. Oregon's Willamette Valley is Pinot Noir country. Washington's Columbia Valley sits east of the Cascade Mountains in near-desert. And New York's Finger Lakes makes cool-climate Riesling beside deep glacial lakes.

Three American bottles to start with