Explore 12 of America’s less discovered wine regions

24.07.2024 - 19:46 / thepointsguy.com

It wasn't so long ago that America's most famous winemaking regions, the Napa and Sonoma valleys, attracted only a tiny and somewhat eccentric cohort of tourists. Then came the legendary Judgment of Paris competition in 1976, when two Napa wineries bested some of France's most prominent vintners in a blind tasting, helping to legitimize Northern California as a world-class wine destination.

Napa and Sonoma now teem with prestigious wineries and tasting rooms — some of them charging steep fees and requiring reservations weeks in advance — along with sophisticated farm-to-table restaurants, posh spa hotels and the other trappings of luxury tourism. Other predominantly West Coast AVAs (American Viticultural Areas) have also become internationally famous for wine-focused tourism, among them Oregon's Willamette Valley, Washington's Walla Walla and Yakima valleys and several other areas in California, such as Mendocino, San Luis Obispo and — thanks in part to the success of the pinot noir-proselytizing hit movie "Sideways" (2004) — Santa Barbara.

These days you can visit wineries in all 50 states, and although the above-mentioned regions tend to receive the most attention as well as acclaim from critics at respected publications like Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast, seriously impressive winemaking destinations now flourish in New York, Michigan, Texas and many other parts of the country where you might never have expected them to just a couple of decades ago.

Explore these 12 noteworthy yet still relatively under-the-radar wine regions from across the United States, all of them offering the opportunity not only to taste outstanding wine but also to view gorgeous natural scenery and experience alluring places to eat and stay.

Comprising a nine-county swatch of spirited mountain towns that hopeful prospectors and adventurers descended upon following the fabled 1849 gold rush, California's Gold Country offers some of the most alluring alpine scenery in the state, and by far the most celebrated wineries in the Eastern Sierras. Specifically, the liquid gold that draws visitors these days is zinfandel, an inky, densely concentrated wine whose ancient gnarled vines cover acres of the region's sunny slopes, especially in Amador and El Dorado counties. In nearby Calaveras County, in addition to zinfandel, Italian and Spanish varietals like nebbiolo, tempranillo and barbera enjoy great success here as well.

Around the quaint towns of Sutter Creek and Plymouth, stellar makers of zinfandel include Cooper Vineyards, Turley (which also has a popular tasting room in Paso Robles) and Sobon Estate Wine Company — don't miss out on their exceptional petite sirah. In and around the Sierra Nevada foothills town of Murphys,