Way down south…
While northern California wine gets plenty of attention, it is often forgotten that at one time Los Angeles and its surrounding counties were the most important wine-producing areas of the west. At the end of the 1800s, the Los Angeles Basin was known as the City of Vines. As urban development encroached on the vineyards of downtown Los Angeles and those along the LA River, plantings shifted south to Riverside County and east to San Bernardino.
During Prohibition these areas supplied fruit, shipped in crates by rail, to home winemakers in the eastern United States. But as...