Just 30 miles from San Francisco, is an easy, uncrowded and rewarding place to go wine tasting. The lack of fame, boutique-wineryfication or crazy land prices keep the wines affordable. And the wine is good.

Livermore is one of the oldest wine-growing areas in California. Spanish missionaries planted its first wine grapes in the 1770’s. It’s also home to the United States’ oldest continually-operated, family-owned winery, Wente Vineyards, which was established in 1883. Just six years later, Charles Wetmore’s Cresta Blanca Winery became California’s first international gold medal winner, taking home a prize from Paris. And Livermore wineries were also the very first to produce varietally-designated wines made from Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Petite Sirah. So why don’t we hear more about Livermore wine?

Livermore's gravelly soil is conducive to high-quality wine grape production and led Hugh Johnson to say that the area comes as close to the white wines of Graves as one can in California. Livermore Valley also features grapes of impeccable pedigree. Charles Wetmore planted Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon cuttings taken directly from Chateau d’Yquem in the 1880’s. Wente clones of Chardonnay, developed in Livermore from cuttings brought from France by C. H. Wente, are used for 80% of all Chardonnay grown in California. So it is neither terroir nor grapes that keep Livermore from the limelight.

The culprits were Prohibition and land development. When Prohibition was instituted in 1919, there were more than 50 commercial wineries in Livermore. During the dry period, that number declined precipitously. Much of the land was planted over to other crops or used for grazing cows and sheep. Then, starting in the late-1960’s suburban sprawl began to cover good vineyard land with houses and small businesses.

After California’s success in the famous Paris tasting of 1976, nearby Napa Valley increased acreage under vine dramatically. That couldn’t happen in Livermore because so much land was covered by buildings or zoned as non-agricultural. And while the number of its wineries has grown rapidly of late, Livermore still has fewer wineries than it did in 1919.