The Sonoma Valleys of the Midwest

The muddy water of the mighty Mississippi River doesn’t immediately conjure up images of wine. But vineyards in four Midwestern states are trying to get their land designated as an official appellation area called the Upper Mississippi River Valley.

Appellation law works so that wineries from a certain geographic region can distinguish themselves from wines of another region. Napa, for example, has more than 300 wineries. Those wineries are technically the only ones allowed to use the words “Napa Valley” on bottles and to do so, 85 percent of the wine in that bottle must be from the region. (Loopholes allow wines such as Two-Buck Chuck to advertise that they’re “made in Napa Valley” when in fact the wine comes from all over.)

Napa and fellow California regions such as Sonoma and the Russian River Valley are the most famous examples, but there are plenty of similar regions all over the country — 180 to be precise. The smallest is Cole Ranch, California, which is less than one-quarter-square mile and contains no wineries, but because it does have grapes and is located in famous Mendochino County, it received a designation from the Treasury Department in 1983. (The Treasury is the only department allowed to officially declare a viticultural area.)

The oldest appellation isn’t in California or Washington or Oregon but right here in Missouri.