Wine Country

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(Redirected from
Wine Country (California)
)
This article is about California's Wine Country region. For other uses, see Wine Country (disambiguation).
Wine Country
Wine region
Top to bottom to right:
Napa Valley in autumn.
Year established1812
Years of wine industry1812–present
CountryUnited States
Part ofCalifornia wine
Sub-regionsWine Country AVAs
Climate regionMediterranean

Wine Country is the region of

Mission San Francisco Solano established the first vineyards
in 1812.

There are over 1700

Mount Veeder AVAs.[5] Cities and towns associated with the Wine Country include Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, Sonoma, Kenwood, Petaluma, Sebastopol, Guerneville, Windsor, Geyserville, and Cloverdale in Sonoma County; Napa, Yountville, Rutherford, St. Helena and Calistoga in Napa County; and Hopland and Ukiah in Mendocino County. Wine is also becoming an important part of the economy in nearby Lake and Solano Counties
.

Appellations

Napa Valley
.
vineyards in Napa
.

Wine Country is generally regarded as the combined counties of Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, Lake, and Solano. These counties contain the following American Viticultural Areas (AVAs):[6]

The six-county North Coast AVA overlaps with the Wine Country as defined here and also includes Marin County. In addition, the names of the counties themselves are legal for use as appellation names.[7]

History

Buena Vista Winery, in Sonoma, is the oldest commercial winery in California, founded in 1857.

The earliest

Arroyo Seco Creek watershed of Sonoma County.[9]

In 2017, many portions of California's Wine Country were heavily devastated by wildfires, including the October 2017 Northern California wildfires.[10]

Ecology

Sonoma Mountain AVA vineyard in front of the Mayacamas Mountains.

A

anadromous fish-movements extensively in Sonoma Creek and in the Napa River as well as in the Laguna de Santa Rosa - not only in the mainstems, but in many of the tributaries. These investigations have demonstrated a historical decline in spawning and habitat value for these species, primarily due to sedimentation[11] and secondarily to removal of riparian vegetation since the 19th century.[12]

Napa Valley
's oldest continuously operating winery.

A variety of

Suisun shrew (Sorex ornatus sinuosus), Sacramento splittail (Pogonichtys macrolepidotus). The above are endangered species with the exception of the splittail, steelhead and black rail, which are federally designated as threatened.[14]

Charles Krug Winery, est. 1861, is a National Historic Landmark.

Upland ecosystems drained include mixed

valley oak is prevalent on the Wine Country valley floors.[16]

Tourism

The Wine Country has undergone a boom in tourism. In 1975 there were only 25 Napa Valley wineries;[17] today there are well over 800 wineries in Napa and Sonoma Counties.[18] Tourists come to the region not only for wine tasting, but also for hiking, bicycling, hot air ballooning, and historic sites, as well as the extensive culinary choices.

Numerous notable chefs and restaurateurs are present in the Wine Country, including

redwoods, hot spring baths, petrified forests
and other natural areas.

culinary school
.

The Wine Country tourism boom has its downside, exemplified by traffic congestion on State Route 29, particularly on summer weekends, when the number of tourists often exceeds the carrying capacity of the road. The Napa Valley is also experiencing pressures for increased urbanization and roadway upgrading.[20] There have also been issues related to regulating home sharing. After a boom in residents renting rooms in private homes, the city government of Napa was forced to require any Napa Airbnb properties to register.[21]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 978-0-679-00918-4
    .
  2. ^ Michael Chiarello, Michael Chiarello's Casual Cooking: Wine Country Recipes for Family and Friends, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, California.
  3. ^ Whitesides, Mary (2004). Wine Country: Architecture and Interiors. Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith.
  4. ^ Molly Chappellet, Gardens of the Wine Country, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, California.
  5. ^ Appelation America.com
  6. ^ "Title 27, Part 9: American Viticultural Areas". Code of Federal Regulations.
  7. ^ "Title 27, Section 4.25(a)". Code of Federal Regulations.
  8. ^ Stewart, Suzanne B., Time before Time: Prehistory and Archaeology in the Lake Sonoma Area. Sacramento, CA: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1985.
  9. ^ Charles Sullivan, Zinfandel: A History of a Grape and Its Wine, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2003.
  10. ^ Fuller, Thomas; Perez-Pena, Richard; Bromwich, Jonah Engel (October 10, 2017). "Wildfires Burn Out of Control Across Northern California; 17 Are Dead". The New York Times. Retrieved October 11, 2017.
  11. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
    , December 2004.
  12. ^ Bland, Alastair (November 18, 2019). "Wine Moguls Destroy Land And Pay Small Fines As Cost Of Business, Say Activists". NPR News. Retrieved 2019-11-19.
  13. ^ San Francisco Bay Area Conservancy Program Fifth Year Report Archived 2007-06-21 at the Wayback Machine pg 19
  14. ^ "Baylands Ecosystem Habitat Goals" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-03-26. Retrieved 2007-04-19.
  15. ^ California's woodlands
  16. U.S. Department of Agriculture
    , 1987
  17. ^ "Napa Valley Wine Tasting Tours". Wine Country Tour Shuttle. Archived from the original on August 22, 2018.
  18. ^ "Fodor's California Wine Country Online". 2006.
  19. ISBN 0-7432-5521-6
    .
  20. ^ "Trancas Road/California State Route 29 Intersection Improvements". Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-04-02.
  21. ^ Yune, Howard (September 4, 2015). "Napa planners support Airbnb-type home rental ordinance". Napa Valley Register.

External links

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for California Wine Country.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wine Country.
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