The Livermore Valley AVA is an American Viticultural Area in

Alameda County Alameda County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,682,353, making it the 7th-most populous county in the state and 21st most populous nationally. The county seat is Oakland. Alam ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, surrounding the city of Livermore in the

Tri-Valley The Tri-Valley area is grouping of three valleys in the East Bay region of California's Bay Area. The three valleys are Amador Valley, San Ramon Valley, and Livermore Valley. The Tri-Valley encompasses the cities of Dublin, Livermore, Pleasa ...

region. Both the AVA and the city are named after

Robert Livermore Robert Thomas Livermore, also known as Don Roberto Livermore, (c. 3 November 1799 – 14 February 1858) was an English-born Californian ranchero. He emigrated to Alta California in 1822, eventually becoming a Mexican citizen and a prominent lando ...

, a landowner whose holdings encompassed the valley. The groundwater basin underlying the valley is the Livermore Basin, the largest sub-unit of which is the

Mocho Subbasin The Mocho Subbasin is the largest of the groundwater subbasins in the Livermore Valley watershed in Northern California. This subbasin is bounded to the west by the Livermore Fault Zone and to the east by the Tesla Fault. Some groundwater fl ...

. The Livermore Basin is one of five

aquifer An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing, permeable rock, rock fractures, or unconsolidated materials ( gravel, sand, or silt). Groundwater from aquifers can be extracted using a water well. Aquifers vary greatly in their characteris ...

s in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

that supply most of the metropolitan Bay Area population. The entire Livermore Basin aquifer faces a concern over elevated

total dissolved solids Total dissolved solids (TDS) is a measure of the dissolved combined content of all inorganic and organic substances present in a liquid in molecular, ionized, or micro-granular ( colloidal sol) suspended form. TDS concentrations are often report ...

by the year 2020 due to an expanding human population leading to higher rates of return water flows to the aquifer containing certain salts.

Wine production

Wine has been cultivated in Livermore since the 19th century, with the

Cresta Blanca Winery Cresta Blanca Winery was one of the original Livermore Valley wineries. It was founded by Charles Wetmore in 1882 with cuttings of Sauvignon blanc from Chateau d'Yquem and other top Bordeaux properties. Its first vintage, a dry white wine in 188 ...

(founded 1882) being one of the earliest, and well-respected, with its first vintage (1884) winning Grand Prix at the

1889 Paris Exposition The Exposition Universelle of 1889 () was a world's fair held in Paris, French Third Republic, France, from 5 May to 31 October 1889. It was the fourth of eight expositions held in the city between 1855 and 1937. It attracted more than thirty-two ...

, becoming the first California wine to win a competition in France. Vineyards were shuttered during

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...

, however, with the exception of two wineries, Concannon and Wente. In the early 1960s, Livermore had as much area under vine as

Napa Valley Napa Valley is an American Viticultural Area (AVA) located in Napa County in California's Wine Country. It was established by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) on January 27, 1981. Napa Valley is considered one of the premier ...

did at that time. However, it remained relatively unknown, while Napa rose to worldwide prominence. Wente Vineyards has long been the largest producer in the Livermore Valley, making around 700,000 cases of

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

annually with wholesale, tasting room and

export An export in international trade is a good produced in one country that is sold into another country or a service provided in one country for a national or resident of another country. The seller of such goods or the service provider is an ...

sales. It was first established in the valley in 1883 and is now the oldest family owned continuously operated winery in the United States. The other large producer,

Concannon Vineyard Concannon Vineyard is the second-largest winery in the Livermore Valley of California, producing around 30,000 cases annually. It is well known for its Petite Sirah and Concannon was the first winery to bottle this grape as a varietal wine in 196 ...

, was also established in 1883 and their wines are available nationally along with a tasting room for direct sales. The third-largest by production capacity and storage i
Raindrop Wine
which also operates unde
Misson Wines
branding. The rest are mostly new and considerably smaller. These wineries include Murrieta's Well, The Winemakers' Studio, Steven Kent Winery, Wood Family Vineyards, McGrail Vineyards, Cuda Ridge Winery, Retzlaff Winery, Fenestra Winery, Occasio Winery, Stony Ridge/Crooked Vine Cellars, Longevity Wines, Rodrigue Molyneaux Winery, 3 Steves Winery, Rosa Fierro Cellars, Big White House/John Evan Cellars, Charles R Vineyards, Garre' Winery, Ehrenberg Cellars, The Singing Winemaker, Chouinard Vineyards, Elliston Vineyards, Las Positas Vineyards, Dante Robere Vineyards, Ruby Hill Winery, Rubino Estates, Bodegas Aguirre, Nottingham Cellars, Vasco Urbano Wine Company, Page Mill Winery, Bent Creek Winery and Nella Terra Cellars. Livermore possesses a predominately gravel based soil and lies on a unique east-west orientation, unlike many other winegrowing valleys. Due to a reliable onshore afternoon/evening breeze off of the San Francisco Bay a wide fluctuation in temperature between sites and a large diurnal temperature swing occur. Livermore Valley is considered a Winkler Region III grape growing zone with temperatures comparable to northern Napa Valley appellations such as St. Helena or Calistoga. The relatively obscure

Petite Sirah Durif is a variety of red wine grape primarily grown in Australia, California, France, and Israel. Since the end of the 20th century, wineries located in Washington's Yakima River Valley, Maryland, Arizona, Texas, West Virginia, Chile, Mexico ...

grape A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus '' Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of grapes began perhaps 8,000 years a ...

produced Livermore's best historically known red wine, although the climate also makes for interesting

dessert wine Dessert wines, sometimes called pudding wines in the United Kingdom, are sweet wines typically served with dessert. There is no simple definition of a dessert wine. In the UK, a dessert wine is considered to be any sweet wine drunk with a meal ...

s as well as excellent Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Sangiovese, and Rhone varieties. The original plantings of

Sémillon Sémillon is a golden-skinned grape used to make dry and sweet white wines, mostly in France and Australia. Its thin skin and susceptibility to botrytis make it dominate the sweet wine region Sauternes AOC and Barsac AOC. History The Sémil ...

and Sauvignon blanc were cuttings taken from

Château d'Yquem Château d'Yquem () is a '' Premier Cru Supérieur'' ( Fr: "Superior First Growth") wine from the Sauternes, Gironde region in the southern part of the Bordeaux vineyards known as Graves. In the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855, Ch ...

, and those grapes tend to produce fine wine in the Livermore area. There is also a move afoot among the wineries in Livermore to specialize in Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and some other mostly

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...

varieties. Wine made from grapes grown in the Livermore Valley is eligible for the Livermore Valley AVA, San Francisco Bay AVA, and

Central Coast AVA The Central Coast AVA is a large American Viticultural Area in the U.S. state of California that spans from Santa Barbara County in the south to the San Francisco Bay Area in the north. The boundaries of the Central Coast include portions of six ...

appellation of origin designations.

Wineries and vineyards

*3 Steves Winer
Bent Creek WineryBig White House Winery and John Evan CellarsCaddis Wines
*

Cuda Ridge WinesMisson WinesNella Terra CellarsNottingham CellarsOccasio WineryOmega Road WineryPage Mill WineryRaindrop WineryRios-Lovell WineryRodrigue Molyneaux WineryRosa Fierro CellarsRubino Estates WineryRuby Hill Winery WineryThe Steven Kent Winery
* Wente Vineyards

Grape Sources

Grapesforwine.comGrapemust.comGrapebuckets.comBaywinebrokers.com

Photo gallery

Image:CedarMtn.jpg, Cedar Mountain Winery Image:RioLovell.jpg, Rios-Lovell Estate Winery Image:StevenKent.jpg, Steven Kent Winery Image:DrivewayREtzlaff.jpg, Driveway to Retzlaff Vineyards Image:CudaRidgeWinesEvent.jpg, Cuda Ridge Wines

References

External links