The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) published a final rule in Federal Register designating the 526,000-acre “Willcox” American Viticultural Area (AVA) in Graham and Cochise Counties in southeastern Arizona. This new viticultural area is not located within any other viticultural area.
The area is a shallow basin, separated from neighboring valleys by the Pinaleño, Dragoon, Chiricahua and Dos Cabezas mountain ranges.
TTB is issuing this regulation in response to a petition submitted on behalf of local vineyard and winery owners. TTB designates viticultural areas to allow vintners to better describe the origin of their wines and to allow consumers to better identify wines they may purchase.
This final rule will be effective on October 12, 2016. The public may view the relevant rulemaking documents and the public comments received regarding the Willcox viticultural area on the “Regulations.gov” website (https://www.regulations.gov) within Docket No. TTB–2016–0002. A link to this Regulatons.gov docket may be found on the TTB website (https://www.ttb.gov).
Arizona now has two federally designated American Viticulture Areas, both of them in Southern Arizona. Sonoita got its AVA in 1984.
Arizona may soon get a third AVA, this one in the Verde Valley area of Central Arizona. Winegrowers there are in the early stages of applying for an AVA that would encompass 123 acres of vineyards in Page Springs, Cottonwood and Camp Verde, said Craig Boyd, vineyards manager and winemaker at Alcantara Vineyards in Cottonwood and one of the Verde Valley AVA’s chief architects.
They hope to submit a petition by early next year to the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which regulates the wine industry.
The process can take as long as three years.
Once that happens, wineries within the boundaries will be able to label their wines “estate,” meaning the fruit and production is 100 percent locally sourced and unique to Willcox. Wineries outside the AVA have to label their wines as "Willcox," “Arizona” or “American,” but cannot call them estate wines.