Martin Redraws U.S. Wine Map

Middleburg AVA in the works

By Warren Rojas

Boxwood vintner Rachel Martin wants to plant a flag in our collective backyard and make the world salute it.

And the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau just might let her.

Martin proposed carving out the Middleburg VA American Viticultural Area—a 193-square-mile tract framed by the Potomac River (north), Bull Run Mountains (east), Hardscrabble Mountains (southwest) and Blue Ridge Mountains (west)—over a year ago. “I felt it was a necessary thing to help identify Virginia as a serious grape-growing region,” she says of the quest to potentially establish Virginia’s seventh AVA (and 198th U.S. wine region).

TTB spokesman Art Resnik offered no finite timetables, but acknowledged that Martin’s application is “in the review process.” Barring any red flags during comment period, Martin—and any wineries within the proposed boundaries—may get to sport estate-grown labels yet. “Nearly all of them will make it through the process—over time,” Resnick suggests.

(July 2010)