Vermont’s Champlain Valley poised to become a federally recognized wine region

Move over, craft beer — Vermont wine is making a name for itself.

The Champlain Valley is poised to become a federally recognized wine region, to the excitement of a number of Vermont vineyard owners.

A new proposed federal rule would designate the “Champlain Valley of Vermont” as an American viticultural area. That would mean the region’s producers could include details of their grapes’ origin on wine labels, and that nearly all the grapes used to make wine bearing the area’s name must be grown inside specified borders. The proposal includes a broad swath of land between Lake Champlain’s edge and the Green Mountains, and stretches from Rutland County to the Canadian border.

Winemakers say this federal recognition by the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau would provide a real opportunity to grow Vermont’s profile in this industry.

“It gives us validity,” said Kenneth Albert, founder of Shelburne Vineyard and former president of the Vermont Grape and Wine Council, who originally submitted the petition for recognition in 2022.His vineyard, founded in 1998, was among the state’s first commercial grape-growing operations.

“We’ll finally get some respect,” he said, laughing.

Vermont’s collection of vineyards represents a small but expanding part of the state’s agricultural economy, with one 2018 University of Vermont study calling winemaking a “unique growth sector.”

Kristen Carrese, who heads marketing and exports at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, said this new recognition could be a boon to the state’s agritourism industry in particular.

“An (American viticultural area) designation is an exciting opportunity to define the Champlain Valley as a distinct wine growing region that’s shaped by our specific climate, soils and geography,” she said.

As laid out in Albert’s proposal, the Champlain Valley’s climate is the result of an unusual combination of factors. Vermont’s cooler weather meets a natural tempering effect from the nearby lake, creating a slightly warmer environment and a somewhat longer growing season than elsewhere in the state.

A warming climate has also brought the potential for growing more varieties of grapes in the state’s vineyards, according to Kendra Knapik, another recent Grape and Wine Council president who co-founded Ellison Estate Vineyard in Grand Isle. But increased risk of extreme weather events makes that trend a mixed bag for growers, she said.

“There’s this concept in wine called ‘terroir,’” Knapik said, citing an industry term referring to factors like temperature, soil makeup and elevation in a grape-growing environment. “You’re tasting a place.”

Essentially, this bid for federal recognition makes the case that the valley’s unique climate is worth flagging for the wine industry, Knapik said. It would also allow local producers to include a more detailed description of the wine’s origin on their labels, a practice Knapik said is otherwise tightly regulated.

For Albert, this freedom to include details about where his grapes were grown would be a major win. It draws more interest from customers, he said, both in the product itself and the region it came from. He hopes, too, that more Vermont regions can earn recognized status in the wake of his proposal.

David Keck, a sommelier and owner of Stella14 Wines in Jeffersonville, was optimistic, if cautiously, about this latest push to raise public awareness about Vermont wine.

“I think it’s good recognition for the area,” he said, adding that the state’s wine industry is “positioned well right now to grow rapidly.”

The main thing the sector is missing right now, Keck said, is large-scale investment. And while this federal recognition is just a small part of the necessary elevation of Vermont’s winemaking profile, he said, it’s surely a step in the right direction.

The proposed rule will be open for public comments until May 26 before federal officials make a final determination.

This story was originally published by VTDigger and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.