Only a handful of wineries are included in the 36,900-acre AVA, stoking the debate about whether slicing and dicing grape-growing areas into increasingly smaller parcels can still produce the distinctive styles that AVAs were originally intended to foster.
What the McMinnville AVA lacks in sheer numbers, however, is compensated for in other critical aspects.
Take the AVA’s mixture of soil types, for instance. The combination of marine sedimentary and basalt-based volcanic soils are the result of Cascade Range lava flows and tectonic plate movements that created the Coast Range some 38 million to 55 million years ago, making them among the oldest soils in Oregon wine country.
Flavor profiles of the pinot noir grown in these highly pigmented soils yields wines high in acidity and distinctive for notes of black fruits and spices.
The primarily east- and south-facing slopes in the McMinnville AVA are generally protected from larger amounts of annual rainfall that splash across neighboring growing areas. Coast Range foothills also buffer vineyards here from chilling spring and fall winds that affect AVAs located only 12 to 20 miles to the east. These geographical factors are especially important during harvest, allowing vineyard managers to let their grapes get a little more “hang time,” which can be crucial to full flavor development.
Dana Tims: email@example.com