, wine region in gold rush country in california and an ava. This is basically the piemonte area on the western edge of the Sierra Nevada, the snowy mountains which separate California from the rest of the US (from reality in the minds of many). Thousands flocked here after 1849 and, miners being notoriously thirsty, the region’s vineyards go back almost that far. The Sierra Foothills AVA blankets all of the vineyards in El Dorado, Amador, and Calaveras counties, takes in a few others in the flanking Nevada and Mariposa counties, and, in the process, points to most of the abandoned mines still there. California Shenandoah Valley and Fiddletown are AVAs within Amador county; El Dorado AVA and the subappellation Fair Play take in the vineyards in that county. North Yuba AVA is, not surprisingly, in Yuba county.
