On October 26th, TTB released a press release stating the agency planned to public a notice in the Federal Register the following day which would reopen the comment period for the proposed Lewis-Clark Valley American Viticultural Area (AVA), which is comprised of 306,650-acres found in locations including Nez Perce, Lewis, Clearwater and Latah Counties in Idaho and Asotin, Garfield, and Whitman Counties in Washington. In that same press release, TTB also noted that it was reopening the comment period for additional public comment on the proposed realignment of the Columbia Valley AVA. There is a potential partial overlap with the proposed Lewis-Clark AVA and the current Columbia Valley AVA. The current proposed realignment would remove the region from the Columbia Valley AVA and place it entirely within the proposed Lewis–Clark Valley AVA. (The original proposal was published on April 14, 2015 in the Federal Register as Notice No. 149.)
In Notice No. 149A, published October 27, 2015, TTB specifically notes that the agency believes the 60-day comment period originally available for Notice No. 149 was sufficient. However, the agency recognizes that the alteration of an AVA’s boundary has a significant impact on industry members, particularly winemakers and vintners using wine or grapes eligible for the “Columbia Valley” AVA. TTB notes this specifically in Notice No. 149, as below:
TTB notes that if the proposed realignment area were to be removed from the Columbia Valley AVA and placed into the proposed Lewis-Clark Valley AVA, wines made primarily from grapes grown within the proposed realignment area would no longer be eligible to be labeled with the ‘‘Columbia Valley’’ appellation of origin. Therefore, because of the potential effect on label holders if TTB were to adopt the proposed modification of the Columbia Valley AVA boundary, TTB has determined that it would be appropriate in this instance to re-open the comment period, for the specific purpose of obtaining further public comment on the proposed boundary modification, before taking any further regulatory action on this matter.
The original proposed rule received 38 comments, the majority of which were quite favorable of the establishment of the Lewis-Clark Valley AVA. However, it does seem that the above issue raised by TTB may not have been considered by many of the commenters, or perhaps did not impact those persons who voiced an opinion on the original Notice No. 149.
The comment period for both proposals will close on November 27, 2015. Comments can be submitted through the Regulatons.gov website through the online comment form for Notice No. 149 as posted within Docket No. TTB-2015-0005.
For more information on wine or alcohol law, AVAs, or TTB matters, please contact Lindsey Zahn.
DISCLAIMER: This blog post is for general information purposes only, is not intended to constitute legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship results. Please consult your own attorney for legal advice.