CALIFORNIA
When shopping for the great wines of the world, you can learn a lot about a wine’s potential for high quality from the appellation on the bottle. The same is true when looking for great values. Certain Northern California regions, often designated as American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) on the bottle, provide important clues for value-minded shoppers.
Look for wines with smaller, county-wide appellations or regional AVAs to give yourself an edge.
In general, the smaller the region the more likely the wine will be higher quality. The corollary is that the widest appellations often produce the simplest wines, which is the case for hundreds of Golden State wines labeled as California AVA.
