Shutterjet / R. Jeanette Martin
Wollersheim Winery, on the site of one of the state’s first vineyards, was instrumental in seeking designation for the state’s first wine AVA.
In France, it’s known as appellation d’origine contrôlée, or AOC. It’s the French government’s certification program guaranteeing that agricultural products like wine, cheese and butter were actually produced in the regions listed on the package labels. The rule was drafted in 1411 to regulate the production and labeling of Roquefort cheese. For wines from regions like Beaujolais and Champagne, the place names themselves have become synonymous with the product’s identity and corresponding quality.
The United States has its own version of the French law, with regard to wine. American Viticultural Areas, or AVAs, are regulated by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, or TTB. The guidelines are less strict in terms of compliance, but use much the same rationale as the French to guarantee, for example, that at least 85 percent of grapes used to produce a wine that claims it’s from Sonoma County, California, were actually grown in that area.
There are no restrictions on the size of an AVA, and 1,768-square-mile Sonoma County, in fact, has 17 of the 242 AVAs that exist in 33 wine-producing states across the U.S.
What you may not know is that Wisconsin is home to three AVAs — each defined by unique geographic and climatological features: The Lake Wisconsin AVA, the Upper Mississippi River Valley AVA, and the Wisconsin Ledge AVA.
Securing an AVA designation from TTB is not easy. The effort can take years and require dozens of pages of documents and reports, including detailed narratives on the proposed AVA’s unique features, climate, geology, soils, elevation and anything else that could positively affect its viticulture potential. TTB then decides if the petition, usually from an area winemaker, warrants the designation.
Does all that effort mean that wines grown in an AVA are or will be superior to those grown outside its boundaries? Not at all. One Wisconsin winemaker doesn’t even buy into the idea that wines grown in the state’s different AVAs taste different because of their location. Peter Botham of Botham Vineyards & Winery, near Barneveld — outside the Upper Mississippi River Valley AVA — doesn’t think winemakers should rely too heavily on AVA designation.
But the designation does create a specific identity for the area, its vineyards and winemakers that is legally recognized and can be promoted on the wine’s label and within its marketing materials. As wine tourism thrives and consumers remain interested in where and how their food is grown, recognition of specific areas can help winemakers better market both their products and the winery itself as a destination.
Anna Maenner is executive director of the Waterloo-based Wisconsin Winery, which serves 80 of the state’s estimated 120 wineries. Today’s consumers, she says, “are interested in getting the unique story about the products they purchase and AVAs are part of that story.”
Lake Wisconsin AVA
Wisconsin winemaking stretches back to the decade before statehood. Count Agoston Haraszthy, a Hungarian adventurer, arrived in Wisconsin in the early 1840s, eventually settling on land east of the Wisconsin River in what is now northern Dane County. In addition to establishing the town of Széptáj — Hungarian for “beautiful landscape” — on the site of what today is Sauk City, the count also planted grapevines and dug wine caves into a nearby hillside overlooking the river.
The cold Wisconsin winters coupled with the 1848 California gold strike drove the count west in 1849, where he established Buena Vista Winery and is credited with starting the California wine industry. A German immigrant named Peter Kehl took over the Wisconsin property and made wine and brandy until 1899, after Kehl and his son Jacob had both died.
After several more Kehl generations farmed the land it returned to its natural state. Robert and JoAnn Wollersheim purchased the property in 1972 and began making wine there as Wollersheim Winery. By 1988, the Wollersheims ran a thriving winery and developed an interest in capitalizing on the property, considered the second-oldest winery location in the U.S.
To do that, they sought designation for what would become the Lake Wisconsin AVA, the state’s first AVA.
“I participated, but it was mostly Bob who drove the effort,” says Philippe Coquard, current co-owner of the winery who arrived in 1984 from his native Beaujolais, France, as an apprentice winemaker. “It was a lengthy process.”
The Wisconsin River, which the winery overlooks, defines the AVA both in terms of landscape and microclimate, two factors critical to determining viticultural viability. The river helps moderate the winter climate, creating temperatures several degrees higher than the surrounding area. In summer, the river valley and limestone cliffs help channel the air and increase air circulation, protecting the vineyards from mildew and rot in hot, humid weather.
The valley’s overall growing season is 10 to 20 days longer than the surrounding area, and soils found in the area that many know as the unglaciated “Driftless Region” also are conducive to better grape growth. Such distinctions helped drive the TTB’s approval of the AVA.
However, Wollersheim’s current annual output of 1.2 million bottles of wine per year and 20,000 bottles of spirits are not all able to take advantage of the Lake Wisconsin AVA designation. To do that, all the grapes and grain used for the products must be grown within the AVA itself.
“But we do use the designation all the time for our Domaine du Sac, Domaine Reserve, Ruby Nouveau, Icewine, Coquard brandy and a few others because the ingredients are grown in the area,” Coquard says.
For Coquard, it’s the soil that drives the area’s terroir, a French word that means how topography, climate, farming practices and even the winemakers themselves affect the wines. “Our approach to terroir is to measure the direct affect the soil has on the wines,” Coquard says. “Growing up in Beaujolais, I had one uncle making wines from grapes grown on granite, the other on clay and flint. It was the same family, the same climate and the same grapes, but two completely different wines based entirely on soil.
“At Wollersheim, the sandy loam and dolomite, which is exposed bedrock, give a very chalky, earthy taste to our Foch,” he adds. “We purchase the same grapes from growers who produce them five miles away and 25 miles away, and the flavor is completely different.”
For many years Wollersheim was the only winery operating in the Lake Wisconsin AVA. In 2013, Rock N Wool Winery opened just inside the AVA’s limits near Poynette.
“Since the Lake Wisconsin AVA also is part of the Upper Mississippi River Valley AVA, we can say that we’re part of both regions,” says Shaun Lapacek, Rock N Wool’s owner and winemaker. “But being part of the Lake Wisconsin AVA is much cooler.”
Upper Mississippi River Valley AVA
The Upper Mississippi River Wildlife and Fish Refuge Act of 1924, and its definition of climatological, geological and land mass characteristics, served as the blueprint for winemakers who secured the Upper Mississippi River Valley AVA, granted in 2009. Dr. Marvin Seppanen, owner and winemaker for Garvin Heights Vineyards in Winona, Minnesota, led the effort.
The Upper Mississippi River Valley AVA is 29,914 square miles, encompassing regions in southwestern Wisconsin, northwestern Illinois, northeastern Iowa and southeastern Minnesota. It’s the country’s largest AVA and includes the Lake Wisconsin AVA within its boundaries.
All or parts of 23 Wisconsin counties, including Dane County, fall under the aegis of this AVA. The area includes steep-sided cliffs, bluffs, deep stream valleys, and karst — a topography underlain with eroded limestone, which often provides better drainage than other soils. The region also has more hills, ridges, areas of thinner glacial till, and other characteristics beneficial to wine grapes, than land outside the proposed boundary.
“The Mississippi River is a huge valley and the world’s largest island of unglaciated materials,” says Lynita Delaney, co-owner of Elmaro Vineyard in Trempealeau. “It’s pretty amazing and a really beautiful place to live.”
Delaney (also one of only three women master plumbers in Wisconsin) and her husband Mark began making wine on the Delaney family farm in 2010. They use Edelweiss, La Crescent, Marquette and other cold weather-hardy grapes developed by the University of Minnesota, producing 150,000 bottles annually. Lynita took a correspondence course in winemaking from the University of California-Davis, while her daughter, Laura Roessler, who holds a biochemistry degree from UW-Madison, studied the more practical aspects of winemaking at Des Moines Area Community College.
“Laura didn’t know about the valves and piping and I needed the more theoretical knowledge behind winemaking,” Delaney says. “It all just fell into place the way it was supposed to.”
Delaney knows that elevation and heat play a big part in a wine, “as do vineyard practices,” she says. Ultimately, the effect of terroir is a complicated equation.
Delaney believes being part of the AVA has value, but thinks the true payoff will take some time.
“Winemaking here is in its infancy, but 20 years down the road having the designation will be a bigger deal,” she says. “As the wineries here mature we will likely develop regional styles of our own. Right now, we’re just trying to please our local customers.”
Wisconsin Ledge AVA
Few understand the AVA process better than Steve DeBaker, owner and winemaker for Trout Springs Winery in Greenleaf. It is, quite possibly, the only combined winery and trout hatchery in the country, if not the world. DeBaker led the effort that in 2012 made Wisconsin Ledge the 203rd AVA in the U.S.
The almost 3,800-square-mile Wisconsin Ledge AVA follows the Niagara escarpment, starting just north of Port Washington and east of Lake Winnebago and traveling northeast through the length of Door County, including Washington and Rock islands.
“I embarked on this quest in 2005 and spent seven years pursuing it,” DeBaker says. “It was a real David-and-Goliath quest.”
The winemaker’s 22-page application discussed the development of the Niagara Escarpment, the long arc of exposed rock and steep cliffs created by erosion and other geologic and climatological factors. The Wisconsin “ledge,” as it’s sometimes known, is 10 degrees warmer than the rest of the state, which makes for a longer growing season and longer “hang time” for the grapes, DeBaker said in his application.
“I went back 110 years in climatological studies to show authorities that this was not a recent phenomena,” he explains. “The lakes surrounding us act like heat sinks and even minor things like fog have positive influences.”
Trout Springs Winery produces 36,000 bottles annually of 21 varieties of wine, many from estate-grown grapes.
DeBaker also raises and sells 100,000 brook trout a year and offers a choice of several custom microbrewed beers at the winery. He’s confident in his production and is ready for more global competition.
“People’s palates are constantly changing and they are evolving from wine to wine,” he says. “We may be 30 years behind everywhere else, but we’re catching up rapidly.”
Steve Johnson, owner and winemaker at Parallel 44 Vineyard & Winery, also in the Wisconsin Ledge AVA, sees a strong influence from the area’s topography and climate on the grapes he grows. The winery produces 130,000 bottles annually, most often from cold-hardy grape varieties grown on Johnson’s combined 15 acres of vineyards in Kewaunee and Door counties.
“Both our Petite Pearl and our La Crescent wines are much more aromatic and fruity compared to similar wines produced in other parts of the state,” says Johnson, who learned winemaking basics from his father. “The Kewaunee County vineyard is just six miles from Lake Michigan and that changes the flavor.
“It’s a cooler climate, which keeps the acids from metabolizing in the grapes, giving the wines their backbone,” he adds. “The vineyards are also on the site of a former gravel pit, which means we have as much limestone as we do soil. That lends a minerality to the wine, and less soil fertility often leads to more expressive wines.”
Johnson believes AVA designations will serve Wisconsin’s wine industry in terms of both growth and recognition.
But ultimately, he says, “We need more vineyards in the ground if we want to create a style unique to Wisconsin,” Johnson says. “We need more growers making more wine before people can start saying, ‘Aha! That’s what a Wisconsin Ledge Marquette wine tastes like.’”
