The Santa Clara Valley AVA is an

American Viticultural Area An American Viticultural Area (AVA) is a designated wine grape-growing region in the United States, providing an official appellation for the mutual benefit of wineries and consumers. Winemakers frequently want their consumers to know about th ...

located in

Santa Clara County Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259, as of the 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring San Benito County together f ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

. The area served an important role in the early history of

California wine California wine production has a rich viticulture history since 1680 when Spanish Jesuit missionaries planted ''Vitis vinifera'' vines native to the Mediterranean region in their established missions to produce wine for religious services. In ...

and was home to the pioneer winemakers Paul Masson and Charles Lefranc. The AVA boundary was defined in 1989. It includes the historic winegrowing areas of Santa Clara County which were not already part of the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA as well as the area near Mission San José in

Alameda County Alameda County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,682,353, making it the 7th-most populous county in the state and 21st most populous nationally. The county seat is Oakland. Alam ...

and a small part of

San Benito County San Benito County (; ''San Benito'', Spanish for "St. Benedict"), officially the County of San Benito, is a county located in the Coast Range Mountains of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 64,209. The coun ...

. The area served an important role in the early history of

and was home to the pioneer winemakers Paul Masson and Charles Lefranc. The AVA boundary was defined in 1989. The Santa Clara Valley AVA is home to two smaller AVAs,

Pacheco Pass AVA The Pacheco Pass AVA is an American Viticultural Area located in the Santa Clara County, California, Santa Clara and San Benito County, California, San Benito counties of California, near Pacheco Pass. It is part of the larger San Francisco Bay A ...

and San Ysidro District AVA.

History

By the 1850s Santa Clara had more acres of vineyards than any other county in California. By 1883 the county had almost of vines and over 100 wineries, but over-expansion and

phylloxera Grape phylloxera is an insect pest of commercial grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America. Grape phylloxera (''Daktulosphaira vitifoliae'' (Fitch 1855) belong to the family Phylloxeridae, within the order Hemiptera, ...

took a heavy toll and by 1902 over disappeared, mostly replanted to

fruit tree A fruit tree is a tree which bears fruit that is consumed or used by animals and humans — all trees that are flowering plants produce fruit, which are the ripened ovary (plants), ovaries of flowers containing one or more seeds. In hortic ...

s such as

prune A prune is a dried plum, most commonly from the European plum (''Prunus domestica''). Not all plum species or varieties can be dried into prunes. A prune is the firm-fleshed fruit (plum) of '' Prunus domestica'' varieties that have a high so ...

s and

apricot An apricot (, ) is a fruit, or the tree that bears the fruit, of several species in the genus '' Prunus''. Usually, an apricot is from the species '' P. armeniaca'', but the fruits of the other species in ''Prunus'' sect. ''Armeniaca'' are al ...

s. By 1910 over half the wineries had disappeared. Prohibition caused another boom in viticulture, with fruit being much in demand for home winemakers. By 1926 around were planted, but since then there has been a gradual decline. By 1997 a little over were planted; since then there has been a gradual resurgence. The population expanded because of the growth of high-tech businesses, and older Almaden Valley vineyards were uprooted to make way for

urban sprawl Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growt ...

. Today the majority of the remaining vineyards are found between the Diablo Mountains in Contra Costa and the

Santa Cruz Mountains The Santa Cruz Mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are a mountain range in central and Northern California, United States. They form a ridge down the San Francisco Peninsula, south of San Francisco. They separate the Pacific Ocean fr ...

south of San Jose near Morgan Hill and Gilroy, with some in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains near Saratoga. As of August 2014, a collaboration between the cities of Gilroy, Morgan Hill, and

, along with th
Wineries of Santa Clara Valley
formed the "Santa Clara Valley Wine Trail" to connect the many wineries and aid in

agritourism Agritourism or agrotourism involves any agriculturally based operation or activity that brings visitors to a farm or ranch. Types A 2018 article published in the ''Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development'' classified a ...

References

External links

TTB AVA Map
{{coord , 37.11332 , -121.68011, display=title, type:adm2nd_region:US-CA_dim:27000
American Viticultural Areas American Viticultural Areas of the San Francisco Bay Area Geography of Santa Clara County, California 1989 establishments in California