So what does it mean to ‘taste’ an American Viticultural Area (AVA)? Having spent a few days immersing myself in the Yamhill-Carlton AVA of Oregon’s Willamette Valley, I’ve tasted a lot of excellent wine, but I find myself wondering whether I’m tasting a place as much as I’m tasting a community.
Step away from the platonic ideals of appellations, perhaps best embodied by the climats of Burgundy, and the definition of wine regions becomes at least as much...
