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Feature Article

Urban wineries

There are seven million stories in the naked city - and a lot of wineries, too. This is their story.

San Francisco Bay (AVA)

No Dirt Shackles For Urban Wineries

by Eleanor & Ray Heald
May 7, 2009

Winemaking does not have to be tied to one parcel of dirt. That’s the philosophy behind the wave of urban wineries that have sprung up broadly across the U.S. Role models for the trend can be found in San Francisco Bay’s East Bay community where Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda form an epicenter of vintner operations in industrial space, retrofitted for state-of-the-art winemaking that still adheres to honoring the regional distinctiveness of the grapes.

DropCap dather than pay exorbitant prices for wine country land, urban winery proprietors rent city warehouse space, truck cool, first-light-picked grapes in half-ton picking bins from a variety of regional vineyards within specific AVAs, and complete the winemaking process from crushing to bottling. This is their story.

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