Sierra Foothills is a vast American Viticultural Area (AVA) encompassing portions of seven of the twelve California counties in the foothill "belt" of the Sierra Nevadas in north-central California, an interior range that extends about 360 mi (580 km) in a northwest-southeast orientation from Mt.

It was established on December 18, 1987 by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), Treasury after evaluating the petition filed by the Sierra Foothills Winery Association of Somerset, California for the establishment of a viticultural area named "Sierra Foothills" in portions of Yuba, Nevada, Placer, El Dorado, Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne and Mariposa Counties.

Some of the prospectors possessed knowledge about grape tending and winemaking and turned to a more settled way of life, planting orchards and vineyards, as placer mining diminished.

In 1855, the State legislature passed a law which exempted from taxation all newly planted grape vines for four years.

In 1861, the Son Francisco Bulletin featured a front page story titled "Vineyards in the Foothills."

In The Wines of America, Leon Adams states that "by 1890, more than 100 wineries were operating at such locations as Nevada City, Colfax, Lincoln, Penryn, Auburn, Placerville, Coloma, California, Shingle Springs, California, Ione, Volcano, Jackson, San Andreas, Sonora, Columbia, and Jamestown.

However, the decline of gold mining at the turn of the century, followed by a loss in population, phylloxera vine disease, and Prohibition, contributed-to the eventual abandonment of all but a few vineyards.