Establishment of the San Luis Rey 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-2023-0007; T.D. TTB-195; Re: Notice No. 225]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1513-AD03</RIN> <SUBJECT>Establishment of the San Luis Rey 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 97,733-acre “San Luis Rey” American viticultural area (AVA) in San Diego County, California. The San Luis Rey viticultural area lies entirely within the established South Coast 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 September 30, 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 has delegated the functions and duties in the administration and enforcement of these provisions to the TTB Administrator 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 to TTB 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 boundary; • 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; • If the proposed AVA is to be established within, or overlapping, an existing AVA, an explanation that both identities the attributes of the proposed AVA that are consistent with the existing AVA and explains how the proposed AVA is sufficiently distinct from the existing AVA and therefore appropriate for separate recognition; and • A detailed narrative description of the proposed AVA boundary based on USGS map markings. <HD SOURCE="HD1">San Luis Rey Petition</HD> TTB received a petition from Rebecca Wood, managing member of Premium Vintners, LLC on behalf of Fallbrook Winery and other local vineyard owners and winemakers proposing the establishment of the “San Luis Rey” AVA in San Diego County, California. Premium Vintners, LLC, operates Fallbrook Winery and farms several vineyards within the proposed AVA. The proposed San Luis Rey AVA is located entirely within the established South Coast AVA (27 CFR 9.104) and covers approximately 97,733 acres. There are 44 commercially-producing vineyards covering a total of approximately 256 acres, along with 29 acres of planned vineyards. There are also 23 wineries within the proposed AVA. According to the petition, the distinguishing features of the proposed San Luis Rey AVA are its topography, climate, and soils. The proposed AVA has low elevations that allow cool marine air from the Pacific Ocean to flow through the region, moderating temperatures. The mean elevation within the proposed AVA is 563 feet, and the average slope angle is 10 degrees. The low elevations and a terrain of gently rolling hills that are open to marine air almost eliminate the spring frosts that can affect vine growth at the beginning of the growing season. The petition also notes that afternoon breezes help to prevent fungal diseases resulting from the morning's low cloud cover. In the region north of the proposed San Luis Rey AVA, elevations are higher and slope angles are similar to those in the proposed AVA. In the region to the south, average elevations are lower and slope angles are shallower than within the proposed AVA. Also, in the area to the southeast, elevations are higher with steeper slope angles than the proposed AVA. The petition did not provide elevation ranges for the area east of the proposed AVA but did include a graphic indicating higher elevations to the east of the proposed AVA. The Pacific Ocean is west of the proposed AVA, so the petition did not provide distinguishing feature information for this area. The petition provided climate data, specifically the average annual mean temperature, average annual maximum temperature, average peak ripening and harvest season maximum temperature, and growing degree day  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> (GDD) accumulations for the proposed AVA and surrounding regions. According to the petition, the proposed AVA generally has mild winters and summers with lower maximum temperatures than regions farther inland due to the proposed AVA's proximity to the Pacific Ocean. The petition notes that the proposed AVA has lower average annual mean and maximum temperatures and fewer GDDs than the regions to the north and south. The proposed AVA has a greater number of mean GDDs but lower minimum GDDs and a lower average annual maximum temperature than the area to the southeast. Additionally, the proposed San Luis Rey AVA has lower annual precipitation amounts than the regions to the north and southeast and slightly higher amounts than the region to the south. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  See Albert J. Winkler, General Viticulture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), pages 61-64. In the Winkler climate classification system, annual heat accumulation during the growing season, measured in annual GDDs, defines climatic regions. One GDD accumulates for each degree Fahrenheit that a day's mean temperature is above 50 degrees F, the minimum temperature required for grapevine growth. </FTNT> The petition notes that nearly 50 percent of the soils in the proposed San Luis Rey AVA are Alfisols soils with high concentrations of essential plant nutrients. Approximately 69 percent of the soils in the proposed AVA are sandy loams that can hold water while draining and aerating well and prevent overly vigorous growth. Soils to the north are 48 percent Alfisols and also contain more Entisols and Mollisols soils than the proposed AVA. To the south, soils are primarily Alfisols but in lower amounts than the proposed AVA. This area also has more Entisols and Mollisols soils than the proposed AVA. To the southeast, soils are 46 percent Alfisols, but contain more Entisols than are found in the proposed AVA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Comments Received</HD> TTB published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) (Notice No. 225) in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on August 30, 2023 (88 FR 59820), proposing to establish the San Luis Rey AVA. In the NPRM, TTB summarized the evidence from the petition regarding the name, boundary, and distinguishing features for the proposed AVA. The NPRM also compared the distinguishing features of the proposed AVA to the surrounding areas. For a detailed description of the evidence relating to the name, boundary, and distinguishing features of the proposed AVA, and for a detailed comparison of the distinguishing features of the proposed AVA to the surrounding area ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 22k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━