The Upper Cumberland has received federal approval as Tennessee’s first American Viticultural Area meaning it is a designed wine-growing region.
Appalachian Region Wine Producers Association President Rick Riddle said receiving the designation was three years in the making. Riddle said becoming an American Viticultural Area will put the region on the national wine map.
“You know we are hoping that in time, people will get to know the Upper Cumberland and get to know the Nine Lakes of East Tennessee and West Tennessee,” Riddle said. “And we have a number of excellent wineries that are in the Upper Cumberland.”
Riddle said the designation proves that the Upper Cumberland has some unique characteristics that make both the grapes grown and the wine produced in the region something special. Riddle said the Upper Cumberland’s climate is what made it the obvious choice to become the first American Viticultural Area in the state.
“The Upper Cumberland is unique as far as a growing area literally, because of the Cumberland Plateau and the elevation that you have up there,” Riddle said. “That’s probably one of the things that makes it most unique, but you certainly have a difference in the soils, some other growing conditions that are unique there, but you know, it’s really those thing that particular area quite different.”
Riddle said not only will the designation bring more wine enthusiasts to the region, but it will also bring more recognition to its wine products. Riddle said that wineries can now put on bottles that the wine was made with grapes grown in the Upper Cumberland’s American Viticultural Area.
“You are kind of comfortable [knowing] that you are getting some of the best that is out there,” Riddle said. “You know, it just wasn’t grown in you know podunk county or wherever. You know it was actually grown in the United States or in an area of the world that is unique and has characteristics that offer qualities to that wine that are found nowhere else.”
Riddle said it is exciting to finally see the Upper Cumberland become an American Viticultural Area.