Conserving the land — for wine

Wine is a familiar thing in California's Livermore Valley, though it has not always been a popular one.

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In the 1840s, pioneer James Livermore planted the first vines in this rocky, temperate stretch of land 35 miles east of San Francisco Bay. Four decades later, as Napa was just getting its bearings, prospering immigrants like C.H. Wente and James Concannon had planted large swaths of vineyards through the valley.

Livermore was a locale that commanded respect in wine, as much as any corner of America could manage in the 19th century. Winemakers who had seen France's vineyard-rich regions in Bordeaux and elsewhere found an excellent facsimile there.

"Livermore looked like the Graves and the Rhone," says Jim Concannon, grandson of James and owner of Concannon Vineyards. "This is not just accidental."

Then came Prohibition, which shut down most wineries — though the Wentes and the Concannons survived by making do as they could, producing sacramental wine and the like.

By the 1960s, the valley was down to just 1,500 acres of vineyard, as the Livermore name was eclipsed by the growing fame of Napa and Sonoma. The valley was far more popular as the next logical destination for the urban sprawl creeping out past Oakland in search of developable land to expand the San Francisco suburbs.

Saved by the vineyard
In the early 1990s, the winemakers of Livermore and an intrepid group of conservationists realized they could share goals: to save the Livermore Valley from the encroaching sprawl by ensuring that much of it remained as agricultural land — which is to say, mostly vineyards — forever.

With the Ruby Hill Development Company eyeing large swaths of what had been vineyard land, Alameda County officials set up an area plan for the south Livermore Valley, including an urban growth boundary and 14,000 acres to be protected, 2,100 of which were in vine.

Realizing that they couldn't halt development, they decided to strike a bargain: Anyone who wanted to build would have to set aside land that could be used only to grow grapes, olives or one of the other crops that thrive in the valley, like nuts.

“It would not have worked for them to say, ‘You can never build anything here,’” says Sharon Burnham, executive director of the Tri Valley Conservancy, the organization that manages the land trust set up under the 1993 plan. “This way, you're looking at a viable agricultural business that hopefully will bring tourism into the area, which also helps other businesses.”

Livermore's urban boundary governs how land is set aside, but on either side, some land must be preserved when development takes place. 

North of the boundary, closer to the city of Livermore — perhaps better known for nuclear research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory — developers must essentially offer a trade: for each house built, and for each acre of land they wish to use, they must buy an easement on one acre of land south of the boundary that guarantees its use either to plant vines or trees, or for open space.

South of the boundary, minimum plots are 20 acres — which can't be subdivided — and only two acres can be used for buildings; the other 18 must be cultivated agriculture.

As they've sought to build on the fringes of the city, developers have both bought easements on a lot of existing vineyard land, including several hundred acres of the Wentes and Concannons, which guarantees its use as vineyard land. Essentially, they are paying vineyards to keep being vineyards. Forever.

They've also taken large plots, cut them into 20-acre parcels and developed them as winery properties. New wineries like Tenuta Vineyards have sprung up on the subdivided land.

Luring wine tourists
It has resulted in a sort of planned wine country, complete with golf courses (one on the Wentes' property) and a green belt under development — not at all unlike the valley's attractions when its first grape growers showed up. This has made Livermore an increasingly pleasant option for daytrippers and other visitors who don't feel like enduring the slog that a trip to Napa can often entail.

“Back in the 1880s, 90s, early 1900s ... people in San Francisco and Oakland had weekend houses that they built in Livermore to get out of the fog,” says Carolyn Wente of Wente Vineyards. “What I get most today in the Livermore Valley, and maybe it’s a backhanded compliment is, ‘I came here because it's so crowded in Napa.’”

And the conservation plan? Currently, the valley has about 5,000 acres of vineyards, nearly 3,000 of which are under easement, with another 900 acres of easement land in olives, nut trees and open land. Napa has more than 40,000, but it's a start — or in Livermore's case, a renaissance.

None of that guarantees the valley's winemakers can manage to resurrect their fame and establish Livermore as California's next great wine destination. But they've guaranteed a wine-focused future for the valley, and helped prove suburbia doesn't always win. It's an lesson not often heard in that part of the world.

“Right across the way from us is Silicon Valley, and that was all orchards,” Concannon says. “We lost all that.”