California California produces nearly 90% of all wine in the United States and at nearly 600 million gallons per year, it sits in the top five of all wine producing countries. Compared to the other great winemaking areas of the world, California has had a relatively short but remarkable history. Its industry dates back to the 1700s when, in 1782, the first Californian wine was made at San Juan Capistrano by Fathers Pablo de Mugártegui and Gregorio Amurrió. This was from Mission vines brought to California by Don José Camacho through San Diego. In 1840, the first California wines were exported and European vines were imported. In 1849, a Hungarian immigrant, Agoston Haraszthy, settled into San Diego via Wisconsin, and began importing cuttings of numerous European vine varieties. Thus a fledgling wine industry began.
The first commercial winery wasn’t established in California until 1883, partially as a result of Haraszthy having imported 165 different vine varieties over the years. In 1857, he moved to an area outside Sonoma, built a winery he called Buena Vista, and established northern California’s first significant wine estate. For the next eighty years, nothing of any significance evolved from the California wine industry. It was not until the 1970s that the wines of California began to attract the attention of serious wine lovers. Whether it was due to the upstarts of a new generation challenging the “old order,” or the financial investment of foreign corporations from Great Britain, Japan, Germany, France, and Switzerland, wine quality in California improved dramatically.
At the beginning of the 1980s, the style of California wines moved away from the heaviness that characterized many offerings of the 70s. After a brief flirtation with lighter, less ripe “food wines’ that often proved to be thin and uninteresting, wine-makers experimented and refined their craft. By the end of that decade, overall standards had risen to such a point where mediocre wines could no longer be blamed on lack of experience or error. All classic grape varieties belong to one species Vitis vinifera, but none of California’s native grapes are members, with the exception possibly of Zinfandel, thought to be a true native grape. The five climatic regions of California have so many similarities to the best wine producing areas around the world, that virtually every classic grape variety finds a home in at least one of them. For purposes of this site, we will review four major California wine regions. Choose a region from the list below:
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