Arroyo Seco AVA

Arroyo Seco is an American Viticultural Area (AVA) in Monterey County, California, southeast of Monterey Bay. The appellation encompasses 18240 acre in the valley adjacent to the Arroyo Seco Creek with approximately 8500 acre of cultivation. The region's proximity to the Pacific Ocean produces the maritime climate, and is best suited for those cool climate grape varieties.

The soils in the Arroyo Seco area consist of a series of gravelly and fine sandy loams well suited to the cultivation of grapes. The viticultural area is an alluvial fan formed by well drained soils with slopes ranging from 0 to 9 percent. Principal soil series include Mocho, Lockwood, Arroyo Seco, Rincon, Elder, and Chular. The prominent soils, Chular and Arroyo Seco, are coarse sandy loams derived from decomposed granite washed down from the Gabilan Range. These soils are gravelly and low in lime content similar to the vineyards in the Medoc and Graves districts of Bordeaux, and to the better vineyards in the Palatinate

In 2021, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau ruled on a modification of the shared Santa Lucia Highlands-Arroyo Seco AVA boundary. The modification removed 148 acre of foothills terrain from the western side of the Arroyo Seco AVA and place them entirely within the southeastern region of the Santa Lucia Highlands. One vineyard containing approximately 135 acre of vines would be affected by this boundary realignment, and the vineyard owner included a letter of support in the petition. The modification reduced the size of the AVA by less than 1 percent and would not have any impact on the boundaries of the Monterey AVA or the Central Coast.