(shared with Louisiana and Mississippi)

This AVA is on the left (east) bank of the Mississippi River, between Memphis, Tennessee, and Vicksburg, Mississippi. It includes portions of the Mississippi Delta and the watershed of the lower Mississippi River in the states of Louisiana (west bank), Mississippi, and Tennessee. In the early 1900s, before Prohibition, grape-growing was profitable in the area, and in the late 20th century, the state of Mississippi invested millions of dollars in Mississippi State University’s Enology Laboratory, located at Stoneville in the heart of the Delta region. This expenditure was based upon belief that the region will someday become “the grape producing area of the Southeast.” An impediment to the spread of the Mississippi Delta’s wine industry is the restrictive local laws in the state of Mississippi. Although Prohibition lasted from 1920 to 1933, the manufacture and sale of liquor was banned within the state from 1907 to 1966, and currently, almost half of Mississippi’s counties are dry although not within Mississippi Delta AVA.

See winery listings for this region