The Tehachapi-Cummings Valley is one of the newest AVAs to be officially recognized by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, the US government department which oversees the nation's AVAs from an administrative and legal viewpoint.
Located in the south of California's Kern County, the center of the valley lies 75 miles (120km) from the Pacific Coast, depriving it of the cooling ocean breezes so beneficial to California's coastal AVAs. The valley is closer to the sands of the Mojave Desert than the waves of the Pacific Ocean, but the Tehachapi Mountains which form its eastern side protect it from the hot, dry desert winds. Just across these mountains is the Antelope Valley of the California High Desert AVA, which straddles the border between Kern and Los Angeles counties.
Due to the valley's inland location and the resulting continental climate, it is subject to pronounced diurnal temperature variation and seasonal changes. The wider Tehachapi area is famous for its four-season climate, which brings summer highs of 104F (41C) and winter lows of -5F (-21C). Precipitation is also highly variable here: the wettest year on record is 1983, with 28 inches (720mm) of rain, and 1989 brought just 4.3 inches (110mm). Local winery Souza Family Vineyards have named one of their Zinfandel wines Quattro Stagioni ('four seasons' in Italian) after the area's variable climate.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the hot, dry terroir here, Zinfandel has proven very successful in Tehachapi-Cummings Valley vineyards. Local wine producers enthusiastically market their rich, ripe red wines as an excellent match for locally produced meats (mostly beef, but ostriches are also farmed for meat here).
At present very few wines bear the Tehachapi-Cummings Valley AVA title. This is partly because it is so newly created, and also because the quantity of wine produced in this area is so small.
