Establishment of the Upper Cumberland Viticultural Area

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY <SUBAGY>Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau</SUBAGY> <CFR>27 CFR Part 9</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. TTB-2023-0006; T.D. TTB-194; Re: Notice No. 224]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1513-AD02</RIN> <SUBJECT>Establishment of the Upper Cumberland Viticultural Area</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, Treasury. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule; Treasury decision. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) establishes the approximately 2,186,689-acre “Upper Cumberland” American viticultural area (AVA) in Middle Tennessee. The Upper Cumberland viticultural area is not located within, nor does it contain, any other established viticultural area. 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. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective June 14, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Karen A. Thornton, Regulations and Rulings Division, Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, 1310 G Street NW, Box 12, Washington, DC 20005; phone 202-453-1039, ext. 175. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background on Viticultural Areas</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">TTB Authority</HD> Section 105(e) of the Federal Alcohol Administration Act (FAA Act), 27 U.S.C. 205(e), authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to prescribe regulations for the labeling of wine, distilled spirits, and malt beverages. The FAA Act provides that these regulations should, among other things, prohibit consumer deception and the use of misleading statements on labels and ensure that labels provide the consumer with adequate information as to the identity and quality of the product. The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) administers the FAA Act pursuant to section 1111(d) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, codified at 6 U.S.C. 531(d). In addition, the Secretary of the Treasury has delegated certain administrative and enforcement authorities to TTB through Treasury Order 120-01. Part 4 of the TTB regulations (27 CFR part 4) authorizes TTB to establish definitive viticultural areas and regulate the use of their names as appellations of origin on wine labels and in wine advertisements. Part 9 of the TTB regulations (27 CFR part 9) sets forth standards for the preparation and submission of petitions for the establishment or modification of American viticultural areas (AVAs) and lists the approved AVAs. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Definition</HD> Section 4.25(e)(1)(i) of the TTB regulations (27 CFR 4.25(e)(1)(i)) defines a viticultural area for American wine as a delimited grape-growing region having distinguishing features as described in part 9 of the regulations and, once approved, a name and a delineated boundary codified in part 9 of the regulations. These designations allow vintners and consumers to attribute a given quality, reputation, or other characteristic of a wine made from grapes grown in an area to the wine's geographic origin. The establishment of AVAs allows vintners to describe more accurately the origin of their wines to consumers and helps consumers to identify wines they may purchase. Establishment of an AVA is neither an approval nor an endorsement by TTB of the wine produced in that area. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Requirements</HD> Section 4.25(e)(2) of the TTB regulations (27 CFR 4.25(e)(2)) outlines the procedure for proposing an AVA and allows any interested party to petition TTB to establish a grape-growing region as an AVA. Section 9.12 of the TTB regulations (27 CFR 9.12) prescribes standards for petitions to establish or modify AVAs. Petitions to establish an AVA must include the following: • Evidence that the area within the proposed AVA boundary is nationally or locally known by the AVA name specified in the petition; • An explanation of the basis for defining the boundary of the proposed AVA; • A narrative description of the features of the proposed AVA affecting viticulture, such as climate, geology, soils, physical features, and elevation, that make the proposed AVA distinctive and distinguish it from adjacent areas outside the proposed AVA; • The appropriate United States Geological Survey (USGS) map(s) showing the location of the proposed AVA, with the boundary of the proposed AVA clearly drawn thereon; and • A detailed narrative description of the proposed AVA boundary based on USGS map markings. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Upper Cumberland Petition</HD> TTB received a petition from the Appalachian Region Wine Producers Association proposing the establishment of the “Upper Cumberland” AVA in Middle Tennessee. The proposed Upper Cumberland AVA covers approximately 2,186,689 acres and is not located within any other AVA. There are 55 commercially producing vineyards covering a total of approximately 71 acres within the proposed AVA, as well as nine wineries. According to the petition, the distinguishing features of the proposed AVA are its geology and elevation, soils, and climate. The proposed Upper Cumberland AVA covers portions of three distinct geographical regions: the western portion of the Cumberland Plateau, the Eastern Highland Ridge, and the eastern portion of the Outer Central Basin. The eastern region of the proposed AVA is located on the western portion of the Cumberland Plateau and was formed from layers of sedimentary rocks that were deposited when an ocean covered the area. The average elevations in the eastern region of the proposed AVA range from 1,500 to 1,800 feet. The middle region of the proposed AVA is located on a cuesta known as the Eastern Highland Rim. This region of the proposed AVA is comprised mainly of various limestones, chert, and shale and contains elevations ranging from 600 to 1,000 feet. The western region of the proposed Upper Cumberland AVA is mostly an escarpment located on the Outer Central Basin of Middle Tennessee with underlying rocks of limestone, chert, and shale. The petition did not include a range of elevations for the western region of the proposed AVA but noted that the elevations are higher than the average elevations of the Inner Central Basin region located farther to the west. The petition notes that the uplifted elevations of the proposed AVA allow more direct and concentrated sunlight—particularly UV light—into the vineyards than in vineyards at lower elevations. According to the petition, for every 1,000 feet of elevation, the level of UV light increases between 10 and 20 percent. As a result of greater levels of UV rays, grapes develop thicker skins which increases the color concentration and tannins in the resulting wines. According to the petition, regions to the north and south of the proposed AVA contain the same geological features found within the proposed AVA, but the petition did not provide information on elevations within these regions. The region east of the proposed AVA is the Valley and Ridge Province of Tennessee, where the sediment and rock was folded and faulted rather than being uplifted into a plateau. Elevations range from 1,100 to 1,500 feet in the ridges and from 700 to 1,000 feet in the valleys. To the west of the proposed AVA is the Inner Central Basin where elevations are 300 to 400 feet lower than elevations within the adjacent portion of the proposed AVA. The petition states that there are three types of soil orders in the proposed AVA. It defines Ultisols soils as “strongly leached, acid forest soils with relatively low fertility.” Inceptisols soils “exhibit minimal horizon development” and “lack features characteristic of other soil orders.” Alfisols soils are moderately-leached soils with relatively high native fertility. The petition notes the eastern portion of the proposed AVA contains Ultisols and Inceptisols soils that are moderately deep, dominantly well-drained, and strongly acidic. These soils have an udic soil moisture regime, meaning that water moves down through the soil at some time in most years, and the amount of soil moisture plus rainfall is approximately equal to or exceeds the amount of evapotranspiration. The middle portion of the proposed AVA contains Ultisols, Inceptisols, and Alfisols soils that are moderately-to-very deep, moderately well-drained, and loamy or clayey. These soils are in the udic soil moisture regime and are also predominantly in the thermic soil temperature regime, meaning that soil temperatures at a depth of 20 inches range from 59 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit. The western portion of the proposed AVA contains Ultisols, Inceptisols, and Alfisols soil orders. Soils in this portion have a thermic soil temperature regime and udic soil moisture regime, similar to the soils in the middle portion of the proposed AVA. The petition notes that the acidic and well-drained soils of the proposed Upper Cumberland AVA allow grapes to retain acidity as they ripen, resulting in “brighter, more acidic finished wines.” According to the petition, to the north and south of the proposed AVA, the soils are similar to the soils within the proposed AVA. Soils east of the proposed AVA are almost exclusively Ultisols soils that generally have a thermic soil temperature regime and an udic soil moisture regime. Soils west of the proposed AVA include Mollisols soils, which are found in grassland ecosystems and are not found in the proposed AVA. Additionally, the region west of the proposed AVA does not contain as many Ultisols soils as the proposed AVA. The petition provided climate data, specifically annual minimum and maximum temperatures, growing season mean temperatures, growing season length, growing degree days  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> (GDDs), USDA plant hardiness zones, and annual precipitation amounts for ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 24k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━