The Shenandoah Valley AVA

July 14, 2025.  The next few blog posts will report on our visits to wineries and vineyards in the Shenandoah Valley American Viticultural Area (AVA).  We have visited the Valley in prior years, but I don’t think we’ve talked about the AVA itself. 

The Shenandoah Valley was the first AVA established in Virginia – dating to December 1982.  47 FR 57696 (12/28/1982); 27 CFR 9.60.  The Federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) had to resolve two major issues before establishing the AVA:

The Name.  In 1981, the ATF received a petition from Shenandoah Vineyards to designate a large region between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains as the “Shenandoah Valley” AVA.  However, more than a year earlier, a group of local businesses in California petitioned the ATF to designate their Shenandoah Valley, due east from Sacramento, as the AVA.  After public hearings in California and Virginia, the ATF solved this conflict by establishing the Shenandoah Valley AVA in Virginia and the “California Shenandoah Valley AVA” for the Westerners.  This recognized that Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley was more well-known generally, while California’s Shenandoah Valley was known among some in the wine community.  Thus, on the same day in 1982, the ATF created two AVA’s the “Shenandoah Valley” AVA in Virginia and the “California Shenandoah Valley” AVA in California. 

The Size.  Another dispute at the time was the size of the proposed AVA.  The petition encompassed 2.4 million acres across parts of ten Virginia counties and two counties in West Virginia’s panhandle.  Against that size, in 1982, there were less than 300 commercial acres of grapes under vine.  But ATF granted the petition because vineyards and wineries had been established or planned throughout the area and the geology was consistent.  Further, designating an area less than that petitioned for would mean demarking an area less than that of the historic Shenandoah Valley of early German and Scots-Irish settlers, the breadbasket of the Confederacy and site of many Civil War battles up and down the region. 

Today, my trusty virginiawine.org road map shows more than 30 wineries and vineyards in the Valley.  According to the 2024 Commercial Grape Report, there are 577 total acres of grapes growing in the Valley.  While that is almost double the acreage in 1982, it is still less than half of what grows in either Central Virginia or Northern Virginia.  https://vaw-public-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/bb64017a27697a66b8b322f445b0fa7a.pdf

This is how the ATF described the geographic features of the Valley:

             The Shenandoah Valley is geologically well defined by the Blue Ridge Mountains on the east and               by the Allegheny Mountains on the west. On the north it is drained by the Potomac River, into                     which the Shenandoah River drains. To the south, the Shenandoah Valley is generally known to                   extend somewhat beyond the headwaters of the Shenandoah River because of the similar                             topographic features, the same        soils, and similar climatic conditions. 

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In the mountain areas, covers of thicker residuum are found only on the granitic rocks of the Blue Ridge when protected from erosion by a thin mantle of fresh core stones. On the other side of the Shenandoah Valley, shales interbedded with thin sandstones have a cover of residuum protected by a blanket of sandstone flags. Other areas are characterized by many cliffy slopes and thin rocky soils.

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Except for the Massanutten Mountain uplift, essentially all of the area is overlain by Frederick-Lodi-Rock outcrop. The record shows that this soil does not occur anywhere else in the State.

The ATF reports that the Blue Ridge side of the Valley dates from the Precambrian era – the earliest time known to the history of the world.  The metabasalts on the eastern side contrast to the sandstone and quartz on the western side which only date from the Silurian era, a mere 440 million years ago.  The lowlands have limestone and shale.  There is a lot of limestone in the soil and higher pH – leading to higher acidity in the wines.

In general, the Valley is known to be cooler and drier than the Piedmont region because the Blue Ridge Mountains help keep the coastal air, heat, and humidity at bay.  We shall see if this bears out in our sampling.

If you visualize the Valley as a canoe, the two mountain ranges are the gunwales and Interstate 81 runs down the centerboard of the boat.  We plan to travel West on Interstate 66 to Interstate 81 near Strasburg, then South on I-81 (AKA “the Trucker’s Paradise”) until it meets Interstate 64 at Staunton.  We return going East on 64 and reset at Charlottesville. 

Stay tuned!

 

 Map from virginiawine.org