The Wine Region Near San Francisco You've Overlooked

Livermore Valley is affordable, accessible and quietly making some of California's most exciting wines

Here’s what you need to get your wine region recognized: Dedicated winemakers crafting beautiful wines, a good PR strategy with a simple message, and thirsty wine writers.

It also helps to have a charismatic evangelist shouting your virtues from the rooftops, or the vine rows.

The region is California’s Livermore Valley, and the evangelist is Steven Kent Mirassou, the sixth generation of one of California’s pioneering wine families. The Mirassou family story begins in 1854 in the Santa Clara Mountains south of San Francisco. Mirassou founded Steven Kent Winery in 1996 in the Livermore Valley, and in recent years has become a fervent advocate of that region and Cabernet Franc as its signature wine. He and his wife, Beth Mirassou, co-founded the Cab Franc Guild a few years ago and sponsor an annual Cabernet Franc festival called CabFranc-a-Palooza. Mirassou also extols Cab Franc’s virtues on his immodestly titled Substack, Wine Saves Lives!

The Livermore Valley Wine Community, a winery trade association, and the Tri-Valley Conservancy, an organization dedicated to preserving agricultural land in the East Bay region, have also endorsed Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc as Livermore’s signature wines, even providing financial help to growers who replant vineyards with those varieties. These factors coalesce to shine a bright light of publicity on Livermore Valley.

“A $30 bottle of Cab Franc from Livermore is affordable, it’s delicious, and it increases the amount of joy that’s spread in the world.” — Steven Kent Mirassou

And thirsty wine writers are responding. If you’ve read much about wine lately you may have seen articles about Livermore Valley producing top-notch wines, especially from Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc. You’ll probably hear more about Livermore in the months to come.

It’s not just hype. During a short visit to the valley last month,¹ I learned that Livermore is about much more than those two grape varieties. It’s a small but vibrant community that is primed to surprise. And if you’re in the San Francisco area and you don’t want to deal with traffic and high tasting fees, you have an alternative.²

Much to Like

There’s a lot to like about Livermore Valley wine country:

• Easy Access: Livermore is about 35 miles from the San Francisco Bay and an easy drive from San Jose and Silicon Valley as well as Monterey to the south, Sacramento to the north and Lodi to the west. “Easy drive” of course assumes you time your trip to avoid rush hour traffic.

• It’s Small: There are just over 50 wineries, and you might meet the winemaker or owner in the tasting room. That gives Livermore a frontier vibe that more famous regions like Napa and Sonoma have lost. Vineyard acreage has declined from about 4,000 acres two decades ago to approximately 1,400 today, reflecting a move away from selling grapes to larger companies outside the valley toward concentration on estate wines.

• The Wines: Don’t expect big and oaky. And although Livermore is east of the Bay Area, don’t expect excessive heat and ripeness. Livermore wines tend to be balanced and lithe, primed more for the dinner table than the trophy case.

The Livermore Valley is bowl-shaped, rather than a deep V. Driving east from the Bay Area, you don’t get a sense of mountains on either side like you do in Napa. In the morning, you may see fog, demonstrating a maritime influence from the San Francisco Bay, just about 35 miles to the west. The bigger influence from the bay is wind, which barrels down I-580 like Silicon Valley commuters rushing to get home in the afternoons. (Those aren’t frost fans whirling over the Altamont Pass east of Livermore at the entrance to the Central Valley.) The wind accentuates the diurnal temperature shifts and slows ripening, extending harvest into November and yielding balanced wines without the sugar and alcohol spikes common in hotter climes. The wind also thickens the grape skins, lending more color and extraction to red wines.

This Ain’t Your Father’s Cabernet (Sauvignon)

“When I first started making wine 30 years ago the goal was to make the most expensive wine, the biggest Cabernet Sauvignon we can, because we’ve got to compete with Napa,” Mirassou told me. “Now the mission has changed dramatically. A $30 bottle of Cab Franc from Livermore is affordable, it’s delicious, and it increases the amount of joy that’s spread in the world.”³

(I did notice streets named Rutherford and Oakville, but few other indications that Livermore has a lingering inferiority complex about Napa.)

On the choice to tie Livermore Valley’s wine reputation to two signature varieties, Mirassou said: “We are very purposefully building some kind of identity for our growing area.” He has a West Coast perspective on how wide open the field is for Cab Franc, something I take issue with as an East Coaster. But that’s for another article. Livermore has a voice for Cab Franc, with its own expression distinct from the Loire Valley and certainly from Napa. It’s also a different expression than the grape achieves in New York or the Mid-Atlantic.

(There may also be a subtle dig at Napa and “King Cabernet” in the choice of these two signature varieties. Modern DNA research has determined that Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc are the genetic parents of Cabernet Sauvignon. Score one for the old folks!)

Don’t sleep on other varieties. Pruett Farms Winery makes some excellent Chardonnay (ironically from Dijon clones, not the local Wente clone) in a reductive style — racy and energetic.

Iberian varieties also do well in Livermore, if the Verdelho, Tempranillo, Monastrell and Graciano I tasted at Las Positas Vineyards are any indication. Perhaps as a holdover from a time of experimentation before the valley began focusing on two signature varieties, Las Positas has an impressive 17 varieties planted over 20 acres of vines. So while the variety is delicious, there’s not much of any to go around.

At Darcie Kent Estate Winery my group tasted a stunning Hazel’s Block Albariño, which that week won best in show white honors at the California Signature Wine Awards. Darcie and David Kent (no relation to Steven Kent Mirassou or Steven Kent Winery) said they are increasingly focusing on aromatic white wines. They produce citrusy Sauvignon Blanc from the Musqué clone as well as savory Cabernet Franc under Darcie Kent and a sister label, Almost Famous.

Darcie Kent Estate Winery is California in a microcosm. The property was once owned by Bing Crosby. Darcie, the sixth generation of a Swiss family that began making wine in Missouri in the 1880s, is a talented artist whose work adorns the winery’s walls and labels. During the covid pandemic, Darcie and David decided to branch out by opening a dispensary on the property, so there’s one-stop shopping for your recreational needs.

Oh, why not have a little fun?

And There’s History, too!

We can’t call Livermore an “emerging” wine region, given that Robert Livermore planted the first grapevines there in the 1840s. The first wineries were established in 1883, and their names are familiar today: Concannon, which first put Petite Sirah on a label in 1961, and Wente, which produced the first varietally labeled Chardonnay in 1936 and is still identified with the Wente Clone of Chardonnay.

“There’s a little bit of Wente in every winery and vineyard in Livermore,” says Julio Covarrubias, a Mexican-born grower who worked for Wente Vineyards for more than 40 years and bought a vineyard from them in 2001 he now calls Casa de Viñas. My group visiting him on a warm May afternoon tasted a delicious Petite Sirah made from his fruit by nearby Mitchell Katz Winery.

There’s also a generational change underway, lending new energy to the valley’s vibe. Wente Family Vineyards, which claims to be the oldest family-owned winery in the United States, is on its fifth generation. Steven Mirassou’s son, Aidan, is involved in the winemaking at Steven Kent Winery, while Aidan’s sister, Sara, is director of hospitality, continuing the family legacy into a seventh generation. Darcie and David Kent’s daughter Amanda is taking a bigger role in running that family winery.

“We’ll never be large like Napa,” David Kent said. “But Livermore Valley is just getting started.”

If You Go:

Livermore Valley is doable as a day trip from the East Bay, maybe even San Francisco itself. For dining, Uncle Yu’s at the Vineyard in Livermore is a winemaker hangout for traditional Chinese-American cuisine, and if the owner’s in a good mood, he may even sing some opera for you. (He’s good!) Nearby Pleasanton also has an In’N’Out.

Golfers can book a tee time at Wente Vineyards, then lunch at The Grill followed by a tasting. (Or, if you’re adventurous, the other way around, I guess.)

In the Glass:

In addition to the wines mentioned above, here are some other Livermore Valley gems I’ve tasted recently.

The Steven Kent Winery Cabernet Franc 2023 Ghielmetti Vineyard Livermore Valley, CA. 13.7%. As with the rest of his single-vineyard series, Steven Kent Mirassou has crafted a sleek, elegant Cabernet Franc. This one has a bit of pyrazine character of the variety, giving a hint of green pepper flavor many Cab Franc fans find appealing (including me).

The Steven Kent Winery Cabernet Franc 2023 Sachau Vineyard Livermore Valley, 13.5%. Ripe and juicy, yet elegant with great structure and texture. There’s a confidence in these wines.

Fenestra Winery, Cabernet Franc 2022, Livermore Valley, 14.1% Juicy, spicy, with black pepper, olive and tea over Bing cherry and plum.

In the News:

Cabernet Franc Offers Life's Most Sublime and Quotidian Pleasures

https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/06/04/livermore-new-downtown-transformation-development/

https://www.diablomag.com/travel-places/beyond-the-bottle-how-livermore-wineries-build-community/article_00da4ba4-45db-47a7-97e3-da34b18862ee.html

1. I was invited to be a judge at the California Signature Wine Awards Competition, held at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton. The entries were mostly, but not exclusively, from the Livermore Valley AVA. The itinerary included some winery visits for out-of-town judges.

2. Well okay, there’s always traffic.

3. $30 may be aspirational. Some Livermore wines soar above that price. But in general, they are more affordable than Napa Valley wines.