The Santa Ynez Valley 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 wineries and consumers. Winemakers frequently want their consumers to know about t ...

located in

Santa Barbara County Santa Barbara County, California, officially the County of Santa Barbara, is located in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 448,229. The county seat is Santa Barbara, and the largest city is Santa Maria. Santa Barba ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

and was established on May 16, 1983 by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). It is part of the larger

Central Coast AVA The Central Coast AVA is a large American Viticultural Area in the U.S. state of California that spans from Santa Barbara County in the south to the San Francisco Bay Area in the north. The boundaries of the Central Coast include portions of six ...

, and contains the greatest concentration of

wineries A winery is a building or property that produces wine, or a business involved in the production of wine, such as a wine company. Some wine companies own many wineries. Besides wine making equipment, larger wineries may also feature warehouses, ...

in Santa Barbara County. The

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between hills or mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers or streams ove ...

is formed by the

Purisima Hills The Purisima Hills are a northwest-to-southeast trending low mountain range of the Outer Southern California Coast Ranges, located in Santa Barbara County, California. They divide the Santa Ynez Valley The Santa Ynez Valley is located in San ...

and

San Rafael Mountains The San Rafael Mountains are a mountain range in central Santa Barbara County, California, U.S., separating the drainages of the Santa Ynez River and the Santa Maria River. They are part of the Transverse Ranges system of Southern Californ ...

to the north and the

Santa Ynez Mountains The Santa Ynez Mountains are a portion of the Transverse Ranges, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges of the west coast of North America. It is the westernmost range in the Transverse Ranges. The range is a large fault block of Cenozoic age create ...

to the south creating a long, east-west corridor with very cool temperatures on the coast that become progressively warmer inland. The

Santa Ynez River The Santa Ynez River is one of the largest rivers on the Central Coast of California. It is long, ArcExplorer GIS data viewer. flowing from east to west through the Santa Ynez Valley, reaching the Pacific Ocean at Surf, near Vandenberg Space Fo ...

flows east to west on the valley floor toward the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the conti ...

. As of 2021, the Santa Ynez Valley contains four other established viticultural areas: Sta. Rita Hills on its western boundary; Ballard Canyon and Los Olivos District occupying the center region; and Happy Canyon on the eastern border.

Chardonnay Chardonnay (, , ) is a green-skinned grape variety used in the production of white wine. The variety originated in the Burgundy wine region of eastern France, but is now grown wherever wine is produced, from England to New Zealand. For new ...

is the most planted

grape A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus '' Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of grapes began perhaps 8,000 years a ...

variety in the cooler, western portion of the valley while

Rhône The Rhône ( , ; wae, Rotten ; frp, Rôno ; oc, Ròse ) is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and southeastern France before discharging into the Mediterranean Sea. At Ar ...

varieties thrive in the eastern locales.

References

External links

Santa Ynez Wine Country Association

Santa Ynez Valley
Santa Barbara Vintners Association
TTB AVA Map
American Viticultural Areas of California American Viticultural Areas of Southern California Geography of Santa Barbara County, California Santa Ynez Valley American Viticultural Areas 1983 establishments in California {{wine-region-stub

See also

References

External links