AmericanWinery.com

Although Yakima Valley, which is in the south central part of Washington state, was the first designated AVA in the northwest, it’s now encompassed by the much larger Columbia Valley AVA. The Yakima Valley AVA encompasses approximately 665,600 acres, starting just southwest of the city of Yakima and flowing southeast almost reaching Kennewick in the Tri-Cities area. It has some of the coolest weather in the Columbia Valley and grows a great number of Concord grapes, most of which are used for … (view more)

An Australian growing region located in victoria’s Port Phillip Zone. It’s situated about 30 miles northeast of Melbourne around the towns of Yarra Glen and Lilydale. Its winemaking history dates back to the early 1899s when vines were planted at Yering Station. Today, after many starts and stops, the Yarra Valley is recognized as one of Australia’s premier wine regions and has over 6,000 acres of vineyard. The terrain is undulating, with some of Australia’s steepest slopes. The climate … (view more)

see Canary Islands

A living, microscopic, single-cell organism. Wild yeast spores are always floating in the air. Just when these wild spores first interacted with foods and liquids is uncertain, but we DO know that Egyptians used yeast as a leavening agent over 5,000 years ago and that wine and other fermented beverages were made for millennia before that. It was in 1857 that France’s famous microbiologist Louis Pasteur discovered that fermentation was caused by yeasts. During fermentation, yeast converts food … (view more)

Used for the yeasty, fresh-bread bouquet found in certain wines that have been aged sur lie—“on the lees” (the fermentation-created sediment that consists mainly of dead yeast cells and small grape particles). Some wines—such as Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc—are aged this way to add complexity. sparkling wines made via méthode champenoise can also assume a yeasty characteristic because they undergo a second fermentation in the bottle. In most wines, however, a yeasty smell is considered a flaw.

A small DO located in the Levante region in eastern Spain, northwest of the city of Alicante. Yecla mainly produces high-alcohol (14 to 16 percent) red wines, primarily from Monastrell (Mourvèdre) grapes, along with some Garnacha (Grenache). The white varieties grown in this DO are Airén, Macabeo, and Merseguera. Experimental plots of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Tempranillo have also been planted. Current efforts suggest that a shift toward lower-alcohol (12 to 13 percent) wines may be underway.

see plastering

A term used in grape-growing and winemaking circles to express the productivity of a set amount of vineyard land. yield is a way of comparing the relative productivity of different grape varieties in different locations. In the United States and Australia, grape yield is generally expressed in terms of tons per acre; in Europe and South America, it’s expressed in hectoliters per hectare. In comparing European yields to U.S. yields, 1 hectoliter of grapes per hectare would be equivalent to … (view more)

Approved in 1987, this 9,360-acre California appellation is located just west of the Paso Robles AVA in San Luis Obispo County. It sits east of the San Lucia Mountains and, at higher elevations, receives the ocean breezes that are typically blocked from the Paso Robles area. Therefore, York Mountain is considered a cool region I area (see Climate Regions of California) and does well with Pinot Noir grapes. It currently has only one winery, York Mountain vineyard, whose history dates back to the 1880s when Andrew York established it as the Ascension winery.

Approved in 1998, this California appellation is in Mendocino County, running northwest from the Mendocino-Sonoma County line just above the Alexander Valley AVA in Sonoma County until it meets the Anderson Valley AVA. It includes about 40,000 acres in areas on both sides of Highway 128, from just above Cloverdale toward Boonville. The Mendocino AVA was expanded to include the Yorkville Highlands AVA as part of the approved petition for the area. Sauvignon Blanc and red Bordeaux varieties are being grown. The area is still relatively new with only a couple of wineries.