Vintners bemoan delay of Calistoga AVA

By JOHN WATERS Jr.
For the Register

Chateau Montelena Winery owner Bo Barrett says Napa Valley residents should become involved in a four-year-old push by local winemakers to create a Calistoga appellation.

The move would allow Calistoga-based wineries to use “Calistoga” on their wine labels, so long as they use at least 85 percent of Calistoga-grown grapes in their wines.

“This is for the greater good of the entire community,” said Barrett. “There are families that have been making wine here in Calistoga for generations, and today they can’t even put the name Calistoga on their wine labels.”

Without the American Viticultural Area designation, Calistoga  winemakers may only use “Napa Valley” on their labels to describe the wine areas where their fruit is grown, according to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

The idea of a Calistoga AVA, however, rubs two wine producers the wrong way. A Calistoga AVA designation would mean Calistoga Cellars and Calistoga Estate wines would have to change the names of their wineries, or switch to sourcing 85 percent of their grapes from Calistoga.

“We’ve used fruit grown in St. Helena, some from Carneros and some from Pope Valley for years,” said Calistoga Cellars Managing Partner Roger Louer of St. Helena. “Not only that, but we’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing our label.”

Calistoga Cellars has made wines since about 1998, and according to Louer, distributes wine to about 35 states.

Although Louer says his wines are produced from Napa Valley grapes, including grapes he grows in St. Helena, the company makes the wines in Ukiah, in Mendocino County. Calistoga Estate wines are made in Santa Rosa, in Sonoma County, according to the Napa Valley Vintners Association.

“Our brand is recognized in many, many places around the country,” Louer said. “If we developed another label, or companion label ... we’d be starting from scratch.”

The two Calistoga wineries’ problem with creating a Calistoga AVA is that rules from the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau would prohibit them from using the name of an AVA as part of the actual name of their wineries, or on their labels if less than 85 percent of the grapes they use in their wines comes from that AVA.

“Additionally, I’d be concerned about being able to find the quality of grapes we are currently using from various Napa Valley growers here in Calistoga,” Louer said.

Calistoga Estates Managing Director Marvin Stirman of Maryland agreed. He said he began his winery three years ago with 28 friends from the Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland area. He said federal regulators should have told him and his partners about the pending Calistoga AVA application before granting his label.

Under a Calistoga AVA, he said, “You’d have to get 85 percent of your grapes from Calistoga, and I don’t know where we could find 85 percent.” Stirman said 100 percent of his wine comes from grapes grown in Napa County.

Stirman said he met two months ago with supporters of the Calistoga AVA and made a proposal. “I told them, ‘Find me the same quality at the same price,’ and I haven’t heard one peep.”

Bronco all over again

Barrett, who started the push for a Calistoga AVA in early 2003, said Calistoga has all the criteria to establish its own appellation, and that there can only be one reason for standing in the way of creating the wine region.

“The only reason is to purposely deceive the public,” Barrett said. “This is Bronco and Fred Franzia all over again.”

In the summer of 2005, the California Supreme Court ruled that the Ceres-based Bronco Wine Company violated a California law that holds any wine with “Napa” on the label must source at least 85 percent of its grapes from Napa Valley. Bronco, under CEO Fred Franzia, had been producing wines with grapes that came primarily, if not completely, from Central Valley grapes.

To create a new appellation, Barrett said, a proposed region must have name recognition as a winegrape growing area. There must be historical evidence of the proposed boundaries of the viticultural area. There must be evidence that the geographical features of the area distinguish it from surrounding areas, and the area must have boundaries featured on Geological Survey maps.

“Calistoga has had all of these, it’s all been recognized for years,” Barrett, said. “Using the Calistoga name without actually using grapes from Calistoga is lying to the public.”

Stirman disagreed, saying the wine-buying public is not aware of the difference.

“The consumer doesn’t know what an AVA is, or where the wineries are,” Stirman said. He added that this inter-county dispute is different from the Bronco case. “That was someone from Sonoma using Napa on their label. ... This isn’t the same.”

Rather than creating an entirely new AVA, Louer said creating a new “district” would work just as well.

“People all over the world recognize the quality wines of the Stag’s Leap District near Napa, or the Spring Mountain District in St. Helena,” Louer said. “The same would be true for wines grown in the Calistoga District. It would achieve the same thing as an AVA.”

Napa Valley Vintners Industry Relations Director Rex Stults called the notion of creating a Calistoga District “bogus.”

“Creating a Calistoga District would allow Calistoga Cellars to continue to deceive consumers and source grapes from anywhere because they are not called “Calistoga District Cellars,” Stults said. “Even with ‘district’ in the name (there are no) post-1986 wineries producing wine with grapes from outside of (a given) AVA. For example, there is no new ‘Spring Mountain Ridge’ winery in the Spring Mountain District making non-Spring Mountain District wines.

In 1986 the TTB allowed geographic brand names to be “grandfathered” into law by creating the “misleading districts,” Stults said.

Calistoga Cellars is proposing the creation of a new “grandfather” date with the sole purpose of continuing to mislead consumers, who rationally assume the grapes in a bottle of Calistoga Cellars wine come from Calistoga, according to Stults.

“This is not the first time this situation has come up,” said Jerry Seps, owner of Storybook Mountain Winery just north of Calistoga.

“Both Chateau Montelena and Cuvaison Winery, in the best interest of all, rather than their own success, voluntarily gave up Calistoga labels,” said Seps. “Chateau Montelena voluntarily gave up ‘Calistoga Cuvee’ and Cuvaison Winery voluntarily gave up ‘Calistoga Vineyards.’”

It may be some time, however, before Calistoga gets AVA status, according to Nancy Sutton, AVA program manager for the TTB.

“The complexity of the name problem and the industry interest makes it impossible to determine when or how a resolution will be reached,” Sutton wrote in an e-mail.

To complicate matters, neither Louer nor Stirman would rule out the possibility of a lawsuit if the Calistoga AVA is approved.

(St. Helena Star Editor Doug Ernst contributed to this article).

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