The story of California wine hasn’t been told in a book in more than a decade. In the meantime, the community of wine has expanded, social media has changed, and consumers now demand more than the Cabernet and Chardonnay that helped make California an icon. (Though both still receive ample veneration.)
Today, the industry faces unique challenges. And each of those brings fresh opportunity. Climate change has become a global worry, which has made wine and farming a powerful site for climate action. Market pressures are challenging wine sales. That’s highlighted the need for the wine industry to expand its audience: to welcome creative new approaches in production and packaging—and, even more importantly, to celebrate people from more interests and backgrounds.
The fundamental importance of regenerating our community’s well-being as much as our environment’s has come to the fore. History, science, sociology, community organizing, and economics have all provided the lessons we need to create solutions to our current challenges.
Seen from this light, the story of California wine becomes more thrilling. It is not merely a story of individual champions (Mondavi, Jackson, Wente) who pushed the industry forward, or the dates when the first AVA was established (1981) and Cabernet became Napa Valley’s king variety (1997).
The story of California wine reaches into state, national, and global forces both political and climatic, as well as the innovations that come with them. It also includes local legends (farmworkers, union organizers, civil-rights activists, organic viticulturists, farm-to-table chefs, wine buyers, and communicators) who transformed how we imagine the potential for California wine.
The Wines of California seeks to share more of this expanded story, with the hope that doing so makes the story of California wine more memorable, and to demonstrate that challenges we face today are not new. The history of the state’s industry is one of countless trials, each faced by a few collaborators who together created not merely solutions but the successes and triumphs that made a leader of California wine.
–Elaine Chukan Brown
California revels in discovery. Its wine and its identity depend as much on the state’s ethos as its climate or geology. Almost as soon as the United States occupied the California territory, it was adopted as a state. Territories typically suffered a trial period to determine if they were state worthy, but in California, gold was found. It was an accidental discovery with economic promise that quickly changed the world.
The California gold rush became a founding narrative for the region that continues today. We might find riches. Everywhere, if we try, we could create a new opportunity from what was thought impossible. The gold rush. Hollywood. Disneyland. Silicon Valley. Apple computers. Tesla. Monarch tractor. Each an innovation, founded in California. And each a reminder for people around the world: in California you can create riches.
Even wine made in the state has created something new. What is surprising about California wine is less how successful it has been (and how quickly!), and more that it managed to become one of the world’s leading wine regions based entirely on imported grapes. Like, essentially, all the so-called new world, California depends on varieties native to Europe. But so many cultivars of Europe brought to California became not merely derivations of their original homeland, but novel and satisfying expressions that reveal new possibilities in wine. An innovation as much as electric cars, early internet companies, or the first talking films.
Amidst many successes, three varieties are among California’s unique contributions to the world of wine: Zinfandel, Chardonnay, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Each grows elsewhere, but in California they created new genres.
Zinfandel was almost completely lost from the vineyards of Croatia, its original home, and while Primitivo (as the grape was known in Italy) grew in Puglia, it was the success of Zinfandel in California that bolstered Italy’s interest in it. Genetic innovations at UC Davis played a key role in recognizing Zinfandel and Primitivo as the same grape. Today, Italy has increased sales by renaming wines made from Primitivo to Zinfandel, and the rosé version, known as white Zinfandel, has gained popularity through Southeast Asia.
Chardonnay unquestionably comes from Burgundy. But it was California, in the 1930s, that named it by variety rather than region first. Then, through a combination of varietal labeling and a series of market revolutions, California established the variety’s fame as Chardonnay (instead of white Burgundy, or Chablis, or Montrachet, or Puligny) and helped make it one of the most planted grapes in the world. Even wine, it would seem, can fulfill the American dream in California.
Cabernet Sauvignon enjoys royal status in the Left Bank of Bordeaux. But with its growth in California, it created two new categories in the world of wine. Its move into the steep slopes and mountain ridges of the state brought recognition of mountain tannins. While there are high-elevation Cabernet vineyards elsewhere in the world, nowhere else is there a high enough concentration of them to create the notion of mountain Cabernet. Then, stepping into the lust and abundance of the late twentieth century, Robert Parker ushered in another new expression of the variety seemingly native to California: cult Cabernet. Harlan, Screaming Eagle, Dalla Valle, Colgin, Bryant, each one a Napa Cabernet reaching icon status and collectors’ cellars through the praise of Parker for its vivacity and size.
This is the ethos of California: that when we do something, we can change the world. California is about believing luck, innovation, and hard work can convert impossibility into the next great industry. (You probably also need capital, but with California luck, you might not!)
It shows up today in the continued willingness of California’s winegrowers and vintners to experiment. We’ve established what grows well here, and yet we keep trying varieties that shouldn’t work where we plant them if we are to believe merely the growing conditions of their original country.
The obscure grape Valdiguié originated in southwestern France, where it was first planted in the 1870s. It was imported to California in the twentieth century and labeled Napa Gamay. In France, it has all but disappeared with only small plantings remaining around the Languedoc. Today, it is comparatively more widely planted in California. Its wines initially were meant to emulate the charm and freshness of Beaujolais nouveau, but today we know the grape is not Gamay at all but another midweight, delicious red. It’s still a niche variety, but our work with it has helped instigate curiosity for it again in France.
Back in California, we find Albariño, but not grown along the ocean shores like we see in Spain. Instead, it’s been planted inland at the intersection of California’s Central Valley and its interior delta region through Lodi, or perched on the high elevation and forested slopes of Calaveras County in the Sierra Foothills. Each location is far from the ocean, yet both deliver delicious, thirst-quenching Albariño enjoyed by in-the-know wine lovers.
For another example, take our willingness to give Petite Sirah a chance after it was rejected as a climate mismatch in southern France, where it was intentionally bred (and known as Durif). In California, it became the backbone for the historic field-blend vineyards of the late 1800s and early 1900s, bringing depth and structure to the exuberance of Zinfandel. Then, decades later, with the desire for full-bodied, tannic, grandiose reds of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Petite Sirah became an impeccable blender for more impoverished varieties, and its own varietal wine. Concannon of Livermore created the first varietal bottling of Petite Sirah in 1961. Others soon followed. While it is mostly regarded as a full-bodied wine of intensity, some producers refused to believe brawn and thrust was all Petite Sirah had to offer. Older bottles from the likes of Freemark Abbey, York Creek, Souverain, and Ridge, as well as more recent examples from (just shuttered) Carlisle, (the now defunct) Mountain Tides, (the also finished) Dirty & Rowdy, or the deservedly still successful Tres Sabores, Theopolis, and Turley have asserted the variety’s aromatic, more finessed side. Altogether, here in California, Petite Sirah has done so well that a few growers in France have brought the variety home to plant there again.
Innovation proves to be as much a part of the growing conditions of California as the San Andreas Fault, the Pacific Ocean, the state’s Mediterranean climate, its temperature range, or exposure to sunlight. It is the influence of the human element brought into harmony with the textured landscape.
Understanding how California came to be the fourth largest producer of wine in the world, as well as the largest in the United States by a factor of more than 16, depends on recognizing that human element. This includes more than mere planting or farming choices made by a few individuals. Who can make these choices in the vineyard depends on the bigger picture.
National—and global—political, economic, and social dynamics and events influence who has access: the history that established wine in the state; the political and market forces brought to bear on the wine industry; the sociopolitical decisions that led to legal changes, immigration policies, and even intentional genocide. Each of these shaped the wine industry California has today.
But understanding the growing potential of California wine also depends on knowing the state’s unique topography; the relationship between the cold ocean currents of the Pacific Ocean with the rising air off the hot inland valleys; the marine layer; seasonal fog; and the important role of wind. These determine which grape types can succeed in particular areas.
How California wine came to be is due to multiple factors. The intersection of the state’s environment with broader global economic and political forces channels through the decisions of local communities and individual wine growers, investors, and winemakers to make the state of wine. The Spanish missions planted vines along the coast of Monterey Bay, but the grapes couldn’t ripen there. It was too cold. Later, new venture seekers tried other varieties that would.
Wine first came to California in the late 1700s, via Spain. The empire sought to protect its investment in New Spain, or modern-day Mexico, by expanding up the coast along the Pacific. Over time, the settlers also brought grapes native to Europe to colonize the landscape and help convert the Indigenous of the region. Those who were converted became the viticulturists of the first hundred years. Only a few Spanish monks were involved in the push to plant grapes. It was enslaved Indigenous peoples that conquered winegrowing in America. After Mexico gained independence, and in the early years of the United States in California, it was the Indigenous population of the area that created the region’s wine.
Vines were established in each of the twenty-one missions built by Spain between San Diego and San Francisco (the twenty-second, Sonoma, was added by Mexico), but four of them never produced wine. The temperatures were too low and ocean influence too great in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Carmel to sufficiently ripen the fruit.
Unlike Spain, Mexico fostered open trade policies and offered citizenship incentives to anyone who moved into Alta California with hard work and an entrepreneurial spirit. The population grew. Under Mexico, Alta California included an enormous expanse across not only what is California today but also Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado, Arizona, Wyoming, and New Mexico. After it was ceded to the United States, Alta California was partitioned into smaller states. The United States also furthered the population boom with a Homestead Act. Land was given to new occupants and farmers, the cost prorated to how long they lived on it. Stay long enough, you could own it for free, time served.
New immigrants brought new vines. Spain planted only what was eventually named the Mission grape, known as País or Criolla in South America, and Listán Prieto in its native Spain. While it served its purpose, its potential for quality was limited. In young vines, the texture of the resulting wine tends to be unpleasant. But as the population of California expanded, so did its range of vines. Investors from the east coast brought vine cuttings gathered throughout the Austro-Hungarian empire. Second waves of missionaries carried in new varieties from northwestern Spain. Wine aficionados traveled around France capturing selections of vines to plant in California. These became the nurseries and expanding vineyards of a new industry.
But a wave of economic recessions in the late 1800s, as well as phylloxera and Pierce’s disease, depressed its development. Then social mores did. In the early 1900s, when the United States finally joined World War I, though its loss of life was significant, the impact on the wine industry was almost irrelevant. Prohibition had already stopped the sale of not only wine but essentially all alcohol.
World War II, on the other hand, helped build the wine industry. It was then supported by the prospering of the fledgling American middle class. But racial segregation maintained throughout the country well into the second half of the 1900s meant interest in wine and investment in its growth was primarily a phenomenon of the white population.
Only recently did new efforts to include people of nonwhite ethnic and racial groups begin. Today, California celebrates the Association of African American Vintners; the longest-standing Black wine festival in the country, Black Vines; the nation’s first Native American winemaker; several of the country’s few Arab American winemakers; a handful of Japanese American vintners; and wineries all over the state that are owned by people who originate from India, China, Vietnam, Chile, Mexico, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, and other countries. Even so, many of these examples feel like exceptions. The socioeconomic history of the United States means white populations, broadly speaking, were historically advantaged by the nation’s policies so had the money to invest in wine.
But the innovative spirit of California persists. Solutions to farming amid climate change develop swiftly here. No other wine industry in the world has such proximity to or availability of technological ability, in the form of Silicon Valley, or scientific research acumen, from UC Davis, combined with the investment capital of the state’s wealth. Here in California, a robotics expert joined forces with a manufacturing logistics specialist, a mobility engineer, and an organic farmer to create Monarch, the world’s first fully electric, automated, smart tractor. They then also convinced the state to offer financial incentives to farming companies to make owning it easier.
In Napa, a plant biologist and climate scientist from UC Davis teamed up with a viticulturist and vineyard consultant, and convinced growers throughout Napa Valley (including some of the most proprietary and tight-lipped in the region) to share weather data and farming choices to create a more up-to-date climate model. It will help growers better understand the relationship between climate, farming, and fruit quality.
In San Francisco, a community organizer and urban farmer partnered with a viticulturist from the North Coast to create a fully funded, yearlong and immersive apprenticeship for Black and Indigenous peoples and people of color to learn vineyard work and management from some of the top producers in California. Together, they’re slowly expanding access to leadership in the wine industry for people who historically have been excluded. These are only a few examples of innovation happening today.
Climate change has come to California. As overall temperatures increase, the heat is perhaps less a concern than how it simultaneously increases the vapor pressure deficit, making the air effectively drier. As air becomes drier, the wildfire season that has always existed grows longer. It’s pushed California to collaborate with researchers in Bordeaux and Australia at a level beyond what’s happened before. As a result, the world of wine has a better understanding of how smoke impacts vines, when it bonds with fruit sugars, and how it shows up in wine. They’re still working on how to mitigate it.
Climate change has already shifted where people plant. Over time, vineyards have pushed closer to the coast and higher up the mountain slopes in search of more even temperatures. Mendocino used to be regarded as the northern boundary of the state’s growing regions. Today, vines grow around Mount Shasta and close to the border of Oregon. It’s not merely an evolving climate that’s helped these newer areas develop. It’s also the deepening of our understanding of how vines grow. As producers have gained a more global perspective, they’ve expanded their views of what’s possible. Newer plantings take inspiration from inland Galicia and the Jura as much as the French Alps.
Shifts in planting choices, grape varieties, and regions have steadily altered the state map of tasting experience. Writing a digest of California wine is no longer a straightforward endeavor of listing the grapes and describing the regions, outlining their founding and the most inspired producers.
Today, a comprehensive book on California wine depends on considering the complicated (and often painful) history of how the state’s industry became a world leader, what producers are doing to face new challenges, and how its regions continue to evolve. That’s what this book hopes to do, offering readers not merely an accounting of California wine today, but an in-depth look at its broader context.
This excerpt first appeared in The Wines of California, written by Elaine Chukan Brown and published by Académie du Vin Library in April 2025. It has been minimally edited for style, length, and audience. Used with permission.
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