My latest in Wine Business Daily:
Interview: David Adelsheim on the Establishment and Evolution of the Willamette Valley AVA
by L.M. Archer
Newberg, Ore. – Willamette Valley AVA (American Viticultural Area) turned 40 on December 1, 2023.
Throughout 2024, the Willamette Valley Wineries Association (WVWA) plans a series of 40th Anniversary celebrations.
Ongoing WVWA events such as The Pinot Noir Auction and Oregon Pinot Camp will also “weave in” the Willamette Valley AVA’s forty year history.
Helping put the appellation in historical perspective, pioneer David Adelsheim, co-founder of Adelsheim Vineyard (and Willamette Valley AVA petitioner in 1982), takes a look back with L.M. Archer. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
Impetus behind establishing the Willamette Valley AVA:
L.M. Archer: As a founding member of Willamette Valley’s wine community, what was the impetus behind establishing the Willamette Valley AVA?
David Adelsheim: We actually already had established the Willamette Valley as a legal appellation of origin in 1977, when we got the Oregon Liquor Control Commission to pass regulations that were far stricter than the Federal rules at that time.
But then we read the fine print in the new American Viticultural Area 1979 regulations, and we found that, once the new regulations became effective, a winery would not be able to use “estate bottled” on a label unless the label also used an approved AVA as the appellation of origin to identify where the grapes were grown.
The Oregon Winegrowers Association board asked me to write up AVA petitions to be sent to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms for the three appellations we had already created in 1977 – Willamette Valley, Umpqua Valley, and Rogue Valley.
I suspect I was the person they asked because I wrote up the OLCC (Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission, formerly known as the Oregon Liquor Control Commission) labeling regulations, and lobbied Oregon’s wineries and the OLCC for their passage.
In 1982, no one knew that the use of AVAs would become the de facto approach to discussions of place in the context of wine. READ MORE HERE.
I’m honored to share my interview with David Adelsheim about the founding of Oregon’s Willamette Valley AVA.