Grape varietal, year and more tout each wine’s background
Gilroy – Did you know that there are several wineries in our South County area that have been making wine here for generations? Our local wineries are eager to tell you about the wine, and they do so right on the label. Wine bottle labels identify the grape varietal, year and include the “appellation of origin.”

There are federal and state legal requirements that a winery must fulfill in order to state the appellation on the label. The California Department of Health Services requires that the wine not derive more than 1 percent of its volume from fruit grown outside California.

The non-California portion must be derived solely from residue wine spirits and the grapes, juice, concentrate, wine or other distilling materials cannot be imported into California for the purpose of wine making. The product must be fully produced and finished within the State of California.

If you see that the “appellation of origin” is from California, this simply means that wine is at least 99 percent grown, fermented and bottled in California. And, of course, California wines are big business – the state’s wineries shipped 532 million gallons around the United States and abroad in 2005.

A lot of people think that an appellation of origin is synonymous with an American Viticultural Area, but the two designations are not the same. Viticultural areas are designations referring to the specific climate in which the grapes are grown. An appellation of origin can be the name of a country, state or county. The AVA specifies the growing conditions within that country, state or county.

For example, Monterey, compared to Gilroy, has cooler weather and a Pacific breeze which creates a different growing condition than the hot, direct sun and clay soil that we are familiar with here. Our local wines announce their “pedigree” by stating that they are California wines (appellation) and which AVA they originate from.

California has 96 of the 172 AVAs established in the United States, three of which are only a short drive around the Gilroy area. Toward the west foothills on Hecker Pass, there is a cooling Pacific breeze in the late afternoon. This area is part of the Santa Clara Valley AVA.

The southwest end of town, where the vineyards get more hot direct sun is designated as the San Ysidro AVA, and the east side of the valley is the Pacheco Pass AVA. The Pacheco Pass AVA is a stretch about 15-miles long in the Casa de Fruta area. The pass was originally used by Indians traveling to the valley to trade, and the winery evolved there to accommodate the travelers – like an early version of a truck stop. Casa de Fruta is in its own little valley with its own weather patterns without a Pacific breeze, but is more prone to fog and damp weather.

The Santa Clara Valley AVA encompasses more than 330,000 acres. The Hecker Pass portion of this area has grown tremendously in the past few decades because of the housing boom in the South Bay Area. Not only does this area contribute in volume, but in variety as well.

Generations ago in this valley, winemakers pretty much had to stick to what would grow well here, but some new techniques enable growers to successfully plant almost any kind of vine. For example, some grapes don’t do well in direct sunlight, so vintners wire up the vines to grow in an umbrella shape. This canopy system allows the grapes to grow underneath to shield them from the sun.

Carlo Fortino, owner of Hecker Pass Winery, uses a different method referred to as “head/cane.” These vines are allowed to grow naturally, with no wires and no cluster thinning, which is trimming away additional crowding clusters of grapes, leaving behind only one cluster per shoot.

Fortino goes one step further and “dry farms” his grapes, which means these vines also receive no irrigation. This technique results in exceptional dessert wines, as well as other varieties. However, it’s not an exact science, and the treatment of grapes varies from vintner to vintner. As Fortino said: “If you gave four winemakers the same grapes, you’d get four different wines.”

Ted Medeiros, owner of Sycamore Creek Winery spoke with pride about his immaculately groomed vineyards which produce Bordeaux varietals.

“Cluster thinning may not produce as many tons per acre at harvest time, but the quality of what is harvested is very high,” he said.

Medeiros is the first generation in his family to own and operate a winery. When asked why he chose this Bordeaux varietal, he replied, “We grow what we love.”

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