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| California's nascent wine industry took flight during the Gold Rush of the 1850s, amid the rugged western foothills of the majestic Sierra Nevada mountain range. As fortune seekers, many of them European, flocked to the Sierras to prospect for gold, small wineries arose to help slake their thirst. Within a few decades, there were more wineries in the area known as the Mother Lode than in any other region of California. Some of the vineyards planted during that era survive to this day. Regrettably, the decline of gold mining at the end of the 19th-century, followed by the advent of Prohibition in 1920, devastated the Sierras' frontier wine community, which lay dormant until the late 1960s. Then, a new generation of pioneers began migrating to the Gold Country, this time drawn by the region's rolling, sun-drenched hillsides, warm climate, and volcanic, decomposed granite soils -- ideal conditions for producing quality wine grapes. When their robustly flavored Amador wines, especially zinfandel, began attracting the attention of wine lovers throughout California and the U.S., the historic Sierra foothill wine region was reborn. luxury hotels in Porto Today, where gold once reigned, twenty wineries produce a new treasure: the superb wines which have earned Amador County international recognition.
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