Story Winery in Amador County’s Shenandoah Valley has a long – and yes, storied – history. Its tasting room is a restored bunkhouse from the Gold Rush era built in 1860. The estate vineyards date back to 1894 – a .75-acre block planted with Mission – along with its Picnic Hill Vineyard, 6.75 acres planted with Zinfandel in 1896, and its Creekside Vineyard, 7.5 acres also planted with Zinfandel in 1936.

When Bill Nachbaur was a second-grade student in Vallejo, California, his teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He replied, “I want to be a farmer.” Little did he know his dream would come to fruition in 1990 in the form of purchasing, farming, and making wine from certified historic vineyards in the Russian River Valley, whose original block dates back to 1890.

Co-owner, winemaker, and head brewer Elaine St. Clair and co-owner and president Laina Brown founded St. Clair Brown Winery in 2010 and the brewery in 2018. After decades of working for other companies, they asked themselves, “How do we want to spend the rest of our lives and career?” The result is downtown Napa’s combined organic culinary gardens, urban winery, and nano-brewery.

The Sierra Foothill Wine Fest Wine Competition, sponsored by the Greater Folsom Partnership, began as a passion project of Mike Owen of Crystal Basin Cellars in El Dorado County, to spotlight the Sierra Foothills as one of California’s up-and-coming wine regions. Photo: Elizabeth Smith

Suisun Valley, recognized as one of California’s earliest AVAs in December 1982, is an exceptional area in which to grow and make Petite Sirah. If one travels to Suisun Valley from Napa using what locals call the backroads over Mount George (bonus: avoiding Highways 29, 12, and Interstate 80) and enters via Suisun Valley Road, there is a sign in front of Vezér Family Vineyards’ Blue Victorian Winery declaring, “The Petite Sirah Capital of the world.”