California wineries lead the United States’ with a modern day gold rush turned grape rush, with 2,275 bonded wineries and 800,000 grape-planted acres. Nationwide sales of the products from wineries totaled $11.2 billion a year. Wineries, in turn, spend $80 million a year on advertising, $40 million on stainless steel tanks and $573 million on bottles. Another moneymaker for the wine industry is tourism- which adds 3 billion a year to travel destination based around wine production. California has more than 19 million wine tourists a year. Grapes have also grown to an important economic pillar here in Amador County as well. In 2005, the last year for which numbers are available, Amador County’s total ag production was just over 43 million dollars and over half of that production- 23 million dollars was from grapes, wine and associated products. Wine grapes now lead the fruit and nut crops production levels here in the county. Agritourism has also become an important economic benchmark as Amador County becomes a tourism destination- an important part of that destination being our local wine country.