Paso Robles Highlands District AVA

Paso Robles Highlands District is an American Viticultural Area (AVA) located in San Luis Obispo County, California and lies within the multi-county Central Coast AVA. It was established on October 8, 2014, by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), Treasury after reviewing the petitions submitted in 2007 by the Paso Robles American Viticultural Area Committee (PRAVAC) to establish 11 new viticultural areas located entirely within the existing Paso Robles viticultural area adjacent to the northern boundary of San Luis Obispo County. The proposed viticultural areas were: Adelaida District, Creston District, El Pomar District, Paso Robles Estrella District, Paso Robles Geneseo District, Paso Robles Highlands District, Paso Robles Willow Creek District, San Juan Creek, San Miguel District, Santa Margarita Ranch, and Templeton Gap District. The AVA Committee's petition originally proposed the viticultural area named "Paso Robles Canyon Ranch."
However, the Canyon Ranch Spa began to market wine under that name after the petitions were filed with the TTB. Although, the PRAVAC had "first in time, first in right," strong evidence in the form of other trademark registrations and COLAs supported the argument that the Canyon Ranch Spa marks are geographically descriptive and hence not registrable. Nevertheless, the PRAVAC and the wine growers did not want to delay the processing of the eleven AVA petitions as result of the CR License's claim of impact to its Canyon Ranch brand. Therefore, they resolved the potential dispute over the "Canyon Ranch" name, and did the historical research and identified the "Highlands" or "Highlands District" as long been used to describe the vast, but relatively unpopulated, area marked with canyons and highlands since the late 1800s.

The Paso Robles Highlands District extends from just south of the town of Shandon to the base of the La Panza Range to its south. The Highlands District AVA encompasses 60,300 acres (94.2 sq mi), making it the second-largest in Paso Robles AVA. Local residents still use the name "Highlands" to refer to the region of canyons and highlands to the east of Creston located within the Paso Robles Highlands District viticultural area, according to the petition. Based on the common use of the term "Highlands" throughout the United States, the words "Paso Robles" and "District" were added as modifiers to the viticultural area name.