Author: Gail Unzelman

MOST PEOPLE DO NOT automatically connect winegrowing with Contra Costa County in the East Bay region of San Francisco Bay like they might do with Napa or Sonoma counties. But there is fine wine history here, and some lovely postcard views and stories to highlight and preserve it. Grapes and wine loomed large in the landscape beginning in the early 1850s. Interestingly, in 1856 Napa County recorded 33 acres in grape acreage. Contra Costa County had 110 acres; in 1860 seven wineries produced some 2300 gallons of wine. At the time of the 1912 postcard below, the vineyard acreage was 8175 acres, and by 1916, just before Prohibition, wine acreage had grown to 8895 acres. Sadly, the Dry years and urban growth set the total acres in the 1970s at 900 acres, and dropping.

Valley of the Moon. When we who live here see the moon rising over the Mayacmas Mountains, we understand why the Indian tribes thought there were many moons in the Valley. Standing out with surprising bigness, apparently never twice in the same place, the moon appears and disappears behind the different peaks, or it may come from behind a clump of trees or over a large live oak, but seemingly, always from a different direction. The Valley of the Moon is not large. It measures about 10 miles across its
base in the south at Sonoma City, bordering San Pablo Bay. Triangular in shape, the distance to the apex to the north near Santa Rosa is about 15 miles. This valley of rich variety provides our country with some of its very best grapes and extra-fine wines. — Gen. Hap Arnold, Ret., Commanding General of the U.S. Army Air Forces, from his Valley of the Moon ranch, 1948.

During the 19th century of California wine country history, there were a handful of women running wineries, all much respected and all widows whose husbands had been winery owners, e.g. Stuart, Warfield, Hood, Weinberger. We will plan a future visit with these noted ladies and their award-winning wine careers. Our present wine country postcard story was inspired by the fascinating book, Women Winemakers. Personal Odysseys by Lucia & John Gilbert, published in 2020. Lucia is a noted scholar of women’s career pathways in male-dominated fields whose recent research focuses on the progress and prospects of women winemakers in California and internationally. Our vintage tour will feature a selection of these amazing, and esteemed, post-Prohibition wine women.

When California attained statehood in 1850 and established the County of San Luis Obispo, grape growing and wine making already had been actively pursued a short few years after 1772. This is the founding date of Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, the fifth Mission of the twenty-one established in Alta California by the Franciscans between 1769 and 1823. The San Luis Obispo wine industry was born at the Mission. Today, in 2024, the celebration of grapes and wine is firmly entrenched in this premier Central Coast wine country with 35,000 acres planted to vineyards and a total of sixteen different American Viticultural Appellations and Sub-Appellations.

Around the time of our amazing postcard visit to Sutter Home Winery in 1908, St. Helena was the bustling hub of the Upper Napa Valley and its wine industry. It was 60 miles north of San Francisco, and lauded as an ideal place to live with a climate where fruits of all kinds grow in abundance.