The Livermore Valley is a growing suburb of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is best known as the site of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, part of the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Safety Administration.

Well before Livermore learned about the atom splitting, there were grapes. First planted by German and Irish settlers in the mid-1800s, the Livermore Valley is one of the oldest wine regions in California. Two of its founding families, Wente and Concannon, are still working on the land and producing wine. It is also a place of renewed vigor and appreciation. With small producers pushing the price for higher quality, the wines are hitting new heights.

Livermore is home to more than 45 prosperous wineries and is rapidly making a name for itself with award-winning wines and genuine hospitality. If it's a small family-owned company or one of the historic wineries, visitors will be able to feel that a neighborly environment is being handled like an old friend. Visit Livermore, one of the oldest wine regions in California, and avoid long queues, crowds and pricey tasting rooms.

But the prominence of wine tasting in Livermore has changed over the last 15 years. There are more than 60 wineries and about 96,000 acres of wine grapes in the American Viticultural Region of Livermore Valley (AVA).

Winemaking began in the Livermore Valley in 1844, when Robert Livermore, a British sailor, planted grapes and started making wine. Two California wineries, Wente and Concannon, founded vineyards in the Livermore Valley in the 1880s. Almost a century before Chateau Montelena and Stag's Leap Wine Cellars of Napa captured the prestigious Paris Judgment in 1976, two Livermore Valley wineries, Cresta Blanca Vineyard, won gold medals at the Paris Exposition in 1889. This honor was the first time that California wine had defeated the competition in France. In more recent years, Livermore constantly seeks to find the right balance between its rural and agricultural roots and growing urbanization.

The Livermore Terroir benefits from the east-west orientation of its valleys, along with a warm growing season offset by the cooling breezes of the San Francisco Bay. Red varieties tend to thrive here, especially Petite Sirah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel.

The following lineup is a must-stop while you explore the Livermore Valley. It begins at the northern end of Livermore and runs west, before taking a counter-clockwise loop through the heart of its wine country.