(PD) -  The entire reason for a wine’s appellation, or the name of the place where the grapes are grown, is to tell you what kind of wine it is.

The name may be significant because it is narrow and tells a lot. It may be general, overarching and therefore difficult to parse, as is the case with “California.”

In both, and for all the appellations in between, the producer or winemaker often matters too. (There are many terrific wines simply labeled “California”; it just very much helps to know the reputation of those who made them.)

The Sonoma Coast appellation extends over 500,000 acres . Lots of wine comes from it, some good, some not so good, some great, some amazing. It’s difficult to tell, however, from the appellation alone and without knowing much about the producer, what’s up.

Half a million acres is two and half times the size of New York City’s five boroughs.

Why so large? In 1987, when the federal government approved the AVA, the word “coast” had cachet in the wine world, as it still does. It connoted cool-climate grape growing, long growing and ripening seasons, development of finely etched flavors and aromas in wine, lower alcohol levels and zippy acidity.

Those are characteristics that wine lovers seek in many wines and are the opposite of what warm- climate appellations give to wine.

In a political move worthy of the craftiest gerrymandering, some winemakers successfully lobbied the government to sweep into the AVA their far-flung vineyards within Sonoma County under the one AVA of Sonoma Coast.

I put together a tasting of wines, all of which carry the Sonoma Coast appellation. Some come from vineyards that hug the Pacific shores; some come from vineyards as far as 30 miles inland.

None of the wines were poorly made, but the differences between true coastal, or markedly cool- climate vineyards, and those from warmer regions within the AVA was striking.

Someone once told me that if you want to smell the difference between wines from Europe and those from the Americas, sniff out the aromas of earth or minerals in the former and the lack of them in the latter. Also, note the higher levels of acidity in the former and the lower levels in the latter.