The new name in cool for California Pinot Noir

The Tobacco and Trade Bureau, the latest incarnation of bureaucracy responsible for the US system of American Viticultural Areas (AVAs), is not particularly known for getting things right. That is, unless you happen to be one of its successful petitioners, having spent years (and a significant amount of cash) assembling the documentation to justify your request for a patch of ground with a governmentally sanctioned name.

Thanks to our political machinery, those petitioners are most often big wine companies with the deep pockets required to produce the various studies required by the government as part of the process. As a...