(RGJ) - Six words in a little-known Nevada law is stopping Washoe County and Clark County from establishing a potentially huge industry in Nevada — wine making and wine selling, said a president of a political action committee trying to change the law.

Nevada's largest two counties are not allowed to make and then sell wine because of a 1991 provision designed to help rural wineries. And today, wineries are well established in Nevada's smaller counties such as Nye, Churchill and Douglas.

Yet the unique climate of Washoe gives the Reno area the potential to cash in on the wine industry, said a University of Nevada, Reno professor who has been growing grapes and making wine on university farmland for almost 20 years.

"I have been promoting that (commercial wine making and selling) for years," said professor Grant Cramer, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology. "Northern Nevada has been growing grapes and making wine at the university experimental station. And it has been shown that the region is able to produce some very good-quality wines."

By this time next year, however, a group of local grape growers and wine enthusiasts that does not include Cramer hope the Nevada Legislature will have changed the law to allow a wine industry to grow in Nevada's two largest counties.

"All we want is six words removed from the current law, said Dennis Eckmeyer, president of the Nevada Wine Coalition and a registered investment adviser.

Eckmeyer called the potential for wine making and wine selling in Washoe County, "the best-kept secret in Northern Nevada.