El Dorado's Fair Play

Yes Fair Play AVA is so very unique in so many ways. And we love being part of this community. But we're also proud to be a part and a founding member of the El Dorado Wine Country and its winery association. And we continue to work together in every way.

In the beginning, our proximity and kinship to our neighbors in the Shenandoah Valley brought us together to start the Sierra Foothills Winery Association. That kinship we still feel today.

But in time El Dorado started their winery association as did Amador and Calaveras. Fair Play wineries worked together right from the start with the creation of the Fair Play Wine Festival.

Even though no Sierra Foothill Winery Association exists today, we still hold great regard and pride for all the efforts of both the vineyards and wineries throughout the foothills for making the Sierra Foothills a world-class wine region and destination.

That old Irish saying (meaning good job, well done) Fair Play To You!

 

FYI: Notice in subtle text just below the Celtic band on our wine label are the words "The Fair Play region in the higher reaches of the Sierra Foothills creates wines with an altitude"

Fair Play AVA

Back in 1986 when there were 4 wineries in Fair Play, I started wrote an application to establish Fair Play as a Federally registered AVA (American Viticultural Area) just like Napa Valley, Sierra Foothills and others. What moved me back then was how tightly we shared so many attributes of what is supposed to make up an appellation (or AVA as we called it in the USA) compared to the Napa Valley, the North Coast, the Sierra Foothills. Don’t get me wrong; on a macro scale these regions identify large differences between each other and share similarities within their respective borders. But these are macro similarities like large scale geography and political identity. But within their borders more diversity exists in soils, climates, elevation, etc. than similarities. But Fair Play AVA epitomizes what an Appellation (AVA) can (and from my perspective) and should be – a wine region that shares more similarities than differences.

 

But myself and the few other wineries at that early time decided we needed first to show solidarity to our ‘mother appellations’ the El Dorado AVA and the Sierra Foothill AVA. I use the term ‘mother appellations’ to show the hierarchy of this system of AVAs. Fair Play AVA is a part of El Dorado AVA which is a part of the broader Sierra Foothill AVA which of course is a part of California, USA, North America, Planet Earth – you get the point.

 

By 1999 4 wineries had grown to 8 wineries with another 6 looming on the horizon just within the proposed Fair Play AVA. The rest of the Sierra Foothills was growing too as was the wine industry all over. On a per square mile or per capita, Fair Play was leading the pack in increasing number of wineries by far. So that same feeling reawakened to put Fair Play on the AVA map. And at the prompting of  then new winery owner Charles Mitchell and the support of the Fair Play Winery Association I resurfaced my application for review and rewrote and prepared a new application for submittal.

 

During our 90 days of public comment in the Federal Register, a petition was filed by Elliott Graham, who today is owner of Busby Cellars, to include his neighborhood immediately adjacent to our proposed boundaries. Upon review it became obvious that the geology, soils, geography, climate and history were the same and most convincingly was the historical kinship that this neighborhood just north and east of Somerset shared with the rest of the Fair Play AVA. So that boundary adjustment, having been made, led to the approval of the Fair Play AVA by 2000.

 

The Fair Play AVA is truly the best example of an appellation with the most attributes in common. But let us not forget that we are part of the El Dorado wine country, we are just east and higher up than our neighboring Shenandoah Valley which we share so much kinship with too, and part of that macro AVA (appellation) called the Sierra Foothills in which we some proudly farm. If we had room on our wine labels we could say:

 

Fitzpatrick

2006

Sierra Foothills

El Dorado

Fair Play

Estate Grown

Cabernet Sauvignon

Made from organically grown grapes

Fitzpatrick Winery & Lodge

since 1980

Where it all began in Fair Play, California