Establishment of the Crystal Springs of Napa Valley Viticultural Area; Modification of the Calistoga 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-2023-0002; T.D. TTB-197; Ref: Notice No. 221]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1513-AC78</RIN> <SUBJECT>Establishment of the Crystal Springs of Napa Valley Viticultural Area; Modification of the Calistoga 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 4,000-acre “Crystal Springs of Napa Valley” American viticultural area (AVA) in Napa County, California. The newly-established AVA is located entirely within the existing North Coast and Napa Valley viticultural areas. TTB also is modifying the existing Calistoga AVA in response to comments received during the comment period. 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 November 15, 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). 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; • If the proposed AVA is to be established within, or overlapping, an existing AVA, an explanation that both identifies 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; • 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">Crystal Springs of Napa Valley Petition</HD> TTB received a petition from Steven Burgess, president of Burgess Cellars, Inc., proposing to establish the “Crystal Springs of Napa Valley” AVA. Mr. Burgess submitted the petition on behalf of local vineyard owners and winemakers. The proposed AVA is located in Napa County, California, and lies entirely within the established North Coast (27 CFR 9.30) and Napa Valley (27 CFR 9.23) AVAs. Within the proposed AVA, there are approximately 30 commercial vineyards covering a total of approximately 230 acres. The distinguishing feature of the proposed Crystal Springs of Napa Valley AVA is its topography. The petition describes the proposed AVA as an “all hillside” region with no flat areas along the western face of the Vaca Range. Slope angles range from 15 to 40 percent within the proposed AVA and are generally west-to-southwesterly facing. According to the petition, west- and southwesterly-facing slopes receive larger amounts of solar radiation than north- and east-facing slopes. The higher solar radiation amounts can allow grapes to easily mature each growing season. Elevations in the proposed AVA range from 400 to 1,400 feet. According to the petition, the reason for limiting the proposed AVA to this range of elevations is that the 400-foot contour generally marks the transition point between the foothills of the Vaca Range and the floor of the Napa Valley. The lower foothills and valley floor are more susceptible to frosts than the elevations within the proposed AVA and, therefore, are more likely to need frost protection equipment in the vineyards. Additionally, the 1,400-foot contour along the northern boundary of the proposed AVA coincides with the southern boundary of the established Howell Mountain AVA (27 CFR 9.94). According to the petition, elevations over 1,400 feet are also more susceptible to frosts due to adiabatic cooling, also known as elevation cooling. To the north of the proposed AVA, the elevations rise up to 2,200 feet within the established Howell Mountain AVA. The topography of the Howell Mountain AVA contains hillsides, like the proposed Crystal Springs of Napa Valley AVA, but also has a rolling, plateau-like feature at the summit. The region to the east of the proposed AVA has elevations like those of the proposed AVA, but the slopes have a more easterly to northeasterly exposure. South and west of the proposed AVA are the established St. Helena (27 CFR 9.149) and Calistoga (27 CFR 9.209) AVAs, which have lower elevations and include the flat lands along the floor of the Napa Valley. The petition describes slope angles within the established St. Helena AVA as mostly less than 5 percent, while the established Calistoga AVA is described as having “a multitude of * * * slopes, from steep mountains to benchlands to fans, to flat valley floors to riparian habitats.” <HD SOURCE="HD1">Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Comments Received</HD> TTB published Notice No. 221 in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on March 2, 2023 (88 FR 13072), proposing to establish the Crystal Springs of Napa Valley AVA. In the notice, TTB summarized the evidence from the petition regarding the name, boundary, and distinguishing feature of the proposed AVA. The notice also included the information from the petition comparing the distinguishing feature of the proposed AVA to the surrounding areas. For a detailed description of the evidence and for a detailed comparison of the proposed AVA to the surrounding areas, see Notice No. 221. In Notice No. 221, TTB solicited comments on the accuracy of the name, boundary, and other required information submitted in support of the petition. In addition, given the proposed Crystal Springs of Napa Valley AVA's location within the North Coast and Napa Valley AVAs, TTB solicited comments on whether the evidence submitted in the petition sufficiently differentiates it from the established AVAs. TTB also requested comments on whether the features of the proposed AVA are so distinguishable from the established AVAs that the proposed AVA should no longer be part of one or the other, or both of, the established AVAs. The comment period originally closed May 1, 2023. TTB extended the comment period for an additional 60 days, until June 30, 2023, because of a request submitted during the comment period (comment 6). See Notice No. 221A, which published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on May 2, 2023 (88 FR 27420). TTB received 15 comments in response to Notices No. 221 and 221A. However, one comment was submitted in duplicate, so only 14 comments are posted to the public docket. One comment (comment 6) requested a 90-day extension of the comment period. In response to the request ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 29k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━