Oakville AVA

Oakville is an American Viticultural Area (AVA) located in Napa County, California within south-central portion of the Napa Valley landform approximately 10 miles (16 km) northwest of the city of Napa and centered around the town of Oakville. The wine appellation was established as the nation's 121^st, the state's 70^th and county's eighth AVA on July 2, 1993 by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), Treasury after reviewing the petition submitted by the Rutherford and Oakville Appellation Committee, on behalf of local vineyard and winery operators, proposing a viticultural area in Napa County to be known as "Oakville."

The Rutherford and Oakville Appellation Committee was composed of seven wineries and seven grape growers in the adjacent areas who petitioned both to be established which ATF ruled on the same day. Oakville, the sixth sub-appellation designated within Napa Valley AVA, has a warm climate well-suited to wine grape production. Wind and fog arriving from San Pablo Bay can affect the morning and evening hours, but their effects are limited by the intervening Yountville Hills. The viticultural area extends over a flat expanse of well-drained gravelly soil between the Vaca and Mayacamas Mountains. Its soil is the result of sedimentary deposits from the hills surrounding Napa Valley composed of gravelly and sandy loam with exceptionally good drainage. The area between State Route 29 and the Silverado Trail is a mixture of clay and well-drained sandy loam. The appellation is known for its success with Bordeaux varietals, which have produced wines of rich texture, firm tannins, and notes of mint and herbs. The plant hardiness zone range is 9a to 9b.

Because the village of Oakville is not an incorporated township, there are no municipal boundaries on which to rely in delimiting this area. Consequently, the petitioners to a great extent utilized commercial and public sector uses of the community name in establishing the boundaries of the Oakville viticultural area. The Oakville Crossroads and the Oakville Post Office are the most notable examples of the name's use within the area. Postal and telephone service areas are less relevant in terms of precise boundaries for the area but do attest to consumer recognition of Oakville as a distinct and separate community. Also, various wine press accounts have helped to define what 1s considered to be the Oakville area. One such account from The Connoisseurs' Handbook of California Wines includes the following entry:

Oakville (Napa). Situated in the southern end of Napa Valley, halfway between Yountville sad Rutherford, this way station is the home of several wineries (foremost among them the Robert Mondavi Winery) and adjoins some of the Nape Valley's best Cabernet growing turf. The superb Martha's Vineyard produced by Heitz Cellars and a substantial portion of the Robert Mondavi Cabernet vineyards are in Oakville, along the western edge of the valley floor. Other wineries In the area are Villa Mt. Eden and an Inglenook production and bottling plant. Of the approximately 13 bonded wineries located In the area, all but two have Oakville addresses. The only exceptions are one winery east of the Silverado Trail which uses a Napa address and one winery just south of the village of Oakville which uses a Rutherford address, due to its affiliation with a winery in the Rutherford area. The winery using the Napa address appears to do so because they receive their mail directly from the Napa post office rather than maintaining a post office box in Oakville. These bonded winery addresses (with the exceptions noted) help to substantiate the boundaries proposed in the petition.