The California Shenandoah Valley AVA is an American Viticultural Area that includes portions of Amador County and El Dorado County, California, USA. The region was first settled during the California Gold Rush in the nineteenth century, and settlers in the region began planting the first grapevines and producing the first wine soon thereafter. In the 1970s, Sutter Home Winery began bottling varietal Zinfandel wines made from Shenandoah Valley grapes, and in 1983 the region became a designated AVA. The most important grape varietal in the region is Zinfandel.
Famous quotes containing the words california and/or valley:
“The apparent ease of California life is an illusion, and those who believe the illusion will live here in only the most temporary way.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1935)
“As I went forth early on a still and frosty morning, the trees looked like airy creatures of darkness caught napping; on this side huddled together, with their gray hairs streaming, in a secluded valley which the sun had not penetrated; on that, hurrying off in Indian file along some watercourse, while the shrubs and grasses, like elves and fairies of the night, sought to hide their diminished heads in the snow.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)