By the second season, the show became more serialized and abandoned the self-contained episode format of the first season. When the show first premiered, creator Earl Hamner, Jr. stated that he did not want the show to become another soap opera like Dallas (1978), however, by its second season, that is exactly what the show became.
A staunch Catholic, Jane Wyman scrapped a proposed lesbian storyline that was to involve Jane Badler's character Meredith Braxton and the character of Erin Jones. Meredith and Erin were re-written to be sisters instead.
Long before the show started, Jane Wyman had known Lorenzo Lamas since he was a baby, as she was friends with his family and with his parents, Fernando Lamas and Arlene Dahl. His father worked with her on Jane Wyman Presents the Fireside Theatre (1955).
Falcon Crest was located in the fictitious Tuscany Valley, which was the Napa Valley in Northern California. The series was filmed at the Spring Mountain Winery in St. Helena.
The writers had planned a storyline for season seven that would have seen Angela's long lost daughter come to Tuscany Valley in order to wage war with Angela over control of the winery. The producers wanted Angie Dickinson for the role. However, when contract negotiations between the producers and Dickinson broke down, the planned lost daughter storyline was changed, and Richard Channing's character was instead made Angela's long lost child.