In September, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 67 into law, which set the stage for the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s (CDFA) Cannabis Appellations Program. Once the program begins to accept petitions, it will establish the world’s first cannabis appellations.
For cannabis growers in California, creating appellations has been a dream. Ask any grower in Northern California’s Emerald Triangle, composed of Mendocino, Humboldt, and Trinity counties and other mostly rural cannabis-producing areas in its vicinity, and they’ll claim that their cannabis is special. It’s from somewhere, and that’s what makes it unique.
“Our belief is that if there is going to be an appellation system, it should be robust and meaningful,” says Rex Stults, vice president of industry relations for the Napa Valley Vintners (NVV) association. “Any appellation system that is not robust and meaningful takes away from all appellations systems. We didn’t want that to happen, so, moving forward, we wanted to offer our input and experience from working within the AVA system since 1981 to help them.”
Richard Mendelson, a key architect of the AVA system, agrees. Mendelson, who lives in Napa and produces wine from his small vineyard, was the attorney behind the petition to create the 16 AVAs within Napa Valley.
Read more at winemag.com.