Central Coast AVA
Winemaking region in the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Central Coast is an American Viticultural Area (AVA) that spans along the Central California Pacific coastline from the San Francisco Bay Area south through Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties. It was established as the nation's 83rd and the state's 48th appellation[6] on October 24, 1985 by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), Treasury after reviewing the petition submitted by Taylor California Cellars, a winery in Gonzales, California, proposing the viticultural area named "Central Coast."[1]
The boundaries of the Central Coast AVA, which have been expanded twice, include portions of six counties where approximately 100,000 acres (40,469 ha) cultivated with Chardonnay being more than half of the varietal. Within the multi-county AVA are numerous established appellations that share the same maritime climate produced by the Pacific Ocean.[5] The plant hardiness zones range from 8a to 11a.[7]
Counties
County names in the United States automatically qualify as legal appellations of origin for wine produced from grapes grown in that county and do not require registration with the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). TTB was created in January 2003, when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, or ATF, was extensively reorganized under the provisions of the Homeland Security Act of 2002.[8][9] The counties within Central Coast are:
