The McMinnville AVA is an

American Viticultural Area An American Viticultural Area (AVA) is a designated wine grape-growing region in the United States, providing an official appellation for the mutual benefit of winery, wineries and consumers. Winemakers frequently want their consumers to know abo ...

located in

Yamhill County, Oregon Yamhill County is one of the Oregon counties, 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 107,722. The county seat is McMinnville, Oregon, McMinnville. Yamhill County was named af ...

. It is entirely contained within the

Willamette Valley AVA The Willamette Valley AVA ( ) is an American Viticultural Area which lies in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. The AVA is the wine growing region which encompasses the drainage basin of the Willamette River. It stretches from the Columbia Rive ...

, roughly running from McMinnville to Sheridan. The AVA was created as a result of a successful petition from Kevin Byrd of Youngberg Hill Vineyards. McMinnville is one of few AVAs that is designated in part based on

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

, with vineyards required to be between and

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

, where the soil and rock formations differ from surrounding areas. Primarily uplifted marine sedimentary

loam Loam (in geology and soil science) is soil composed mostly of sand (particle size > ), silt (particle size > ), and a smaller amount of clay (particle size < ). By weight, its mineral composition is about 40–40–20% concentration of sand–sil ...

s and

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel when ...

, the top soil is shallow and relatively infertile.

References

External links

McMinnville AVA Winegrowers

American Viticultural Areas Oregon wine Geography of Yamhill County, Oregon 2005 establishments in Oregon {{wine-region-stub