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)
“Ah! I have penetrated to those meadows on the morning of many a first spring day, jumping from hummock to hummock, from willow root to willow root, when the wild river valley and the woods were bathed in so pure and bright a light as would have waked the dead, if they had been slumbering in their graves, as some suppose. There needs no stronger proof of immortality. All things must live in such a light. O Death, where was thy sting? O Grave, where was thy victory, then?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)