Santa Clara Valley
Before it was Silicon Valley, this was orchard and vineyard country, one of California's oldest wine regions, still producing in the heart of the South Bay.
About Santa Clara Valley
The Santa Clara Valley, stretching south from San Francisco Bay through San Jose, is one of California's oldest wine regions. Franciscan missionaries planted the first vines here in the late 1700s, and by the 19th century the valley was a thriving center of commercial winemaking long before it earned the name Silicon Valley.
As orchards and vineyards gave way to technology campuses in the 20th century, the region's wine heritage narrowed but never disappeared. J. Lohr's founding winery on Lenzen Avenue in San Jose, established in 1974, became a cornerstone of that continuity, an urban winery keeping serious winemaking alive in the heart of the South Bay.
The valley's climate blends warm inland days with cooling marine air that spills in from the bay and over the Santa Cruz Mountains to the west, suiting Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Rhone varieties. Together with the foothill vineyards around Morgan Hill and Gilroy to the south, Santa Clara Valley offers a rare taste of California wine history within a major metropolitan area.
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