East Bay Area

The East Bay is Livermore Valley and a loose necklace of urban tasting rooms. Livermore runs hot in the afternoon and cold at night — a scrap of climate old-vine cabernet and petite sirah have worked since the 1880s. North in Alameda and Oakland, warehouse tasting rooms crowded with tanks and barrels lean into natural wines, field blends, and whatever the grower brought down this week. Wente, Retzlaff, Ridge’s Lytton turnouts, Rosenblum, Dashe — all within a BART ride of the city.