This past weekend we finished off a bottle of Holly’s Hill Vineyards El Dorado 06 estate Grenache.  Medium body with an earthy Pinot-like nose and a fine lasting finish.  It has just a light hint of sweetness but is not a sweet wine at all. Nice and dry.

A view through the tasting room to the amazing Sierra Foothills view from the deck.

So what’s the story about a visit to Holly’s Hill?  Well, for one Holly’s Hill and nearby Sierra Vista and Narrowgate are well off the beaten track.  Most wineries in El Dorado County are along or not far off the Carson Road east of Placerville and north of US 50, or closer to Amador’s wine region in Fairplay.  Holly’s Hill, Sierra Vista, and Narrowgate are between these two areas.

They seem to get less traffic and offer  a quality mountain winery experience.  Holly’s Hill has a friendly, warm, and cozy tasting room.  The big attraction is the view from the deck and picnic tables!   If there is not much haze then you can see far south down the Sierra Foothills and across the Central Valley.  The deck and picnic area have a southern exposure which can be a bit toasty on hot days but wonderful during the cool months.

A visit to Holly’s Hill and the nearby wineries is a special treat year-round.  Bring a picnic lunch and have a feast with a view!

- jim

Last Thursday mid-day I was done with a meeting near Sacramento so I headed up Highway 50 to Placerville for one of my favorite wine tasting road trips.  My purpose was shooting photography for our upcoming video series on each wine region but I hit a few tasting rooms when time allows.

We’ll feature this road trip in a video and map someday but for now I recommend taking Ceder Ravine Road south from Placerville and tasting at the wineries in those hills.  Most of the roads are winding mountain roads covered by oaks and pines.  The smell of pine is everywhere.  All of the wineries are small and as I recall family owned.  Vintners are often pouring for you.  Some wineries aren’t open early in the week.

Travel through the Fairplay area and either return to Placerville for lodging or drive south to Plymouth, Amador City (check the little bakery!), or Sutter Creek for more Gold Rush Town ambiance.  Fairplay has only one restaurant and it is open on weekends and late week evenings.  Food sources are sparse in the back hills of El Dorado County so bring something with you.

The next day drive the loops in Amador’s Shenandoah Valley where you’ll find the splendor of Villa Toscana and Bella Piazzio along with quaint little tasting rooms such as Story and Wildrotter.  You’ll find food at Villa Toscana and in Plymouth.  Dinner at Taste Restaurant in Plymouth is a treat in fine gourmet dinning.

We’ll soon have the winery profiles online for El Dorado and Amador regions for you to select and sort which wineries interest you.  We like every tasting room we’ve mapped in the Sierra Foothills wine regions.

For maps of the regions please visit our California Wine Regions GPS maps!  All locations were GPS mapped by me.  They aren’t geo-coded addresses like all the other online wine maps.  Those are very inaccurate in rural areas.

- jim

I just returned from a three day video shoot of three Sierra Foothills regions; El Dorado, Amador, and Murphys / Calaveras.  I travel and visit hundreds of tasting rooms a year and only buy wines that I find unusually interesting to taste.  As always I’m not going to tell you what you will taste in whatever context you drink wine but if you are looking for a taste adventure try these outstanding wines.

Tanner – Murphys / Calaveras region.  The Tanners have been growers for decades but are recent to winemaking.  They opened a tasting room in Murphys last summer.  I’m very impressed with all their wines but these stand out:

• Vermentino – A rare white grape and VERY dry.  Almost no flavor but interesting taste anyway.  Nice surprise of a wine.
• 2006 Syrah
• 2006 Petit Verdot

Twisted Oak – Murphys / Calaveras region.  This hilltop winery has great views and is very friendly.  The long driveway is, well, entertaining, and will be featured in our upcoming video on the region.

• 2005 Murgatroyd
• 2006 The Spaniard
• 2005 Tanner Vineyard Syrah
• 2006 Pig Stai Calaveras County port

Amador Cellars – Amador region.  This little winery in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley just east of Highway 49 is home to an interesting range of wines.  The winemaker experimented with some older style techniques and the result are the following three robust wines.  Amador makes softer wines that are popular now but for those of us who want plenty of flavor and nose then try these!

• 2004 Syrah
• 2004 Zinfandel
• 2006 Zinfandel
• 2005 Rapscallion – Zin – Syrah blend with oak and taste adventure in a cute little 1 liter jug!

Chatom Vineyards – Murphys / Calaveras region.  Chatom is woman owned and operated with an intimate tasting room and events in their barrel room.  Nice landscaping, very friendly staff, owner pours, and arbor covered picnic area make Chatom one of our favorite destinations.

• 2006 Chardonnay
• 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon
• 2004 Zinfandel

Stevenot – Murphys / Calaveras region.  I tasted a few wines at the ranch, their remote and wonderfully romantic tasting room.  This tasting room is in an old house in a deep valley with the winery’s old barns nearby.  They have a picnic area under a grape arbor. $72 for a case of their Red Rover stainless steel aged Chardonnay so I bought a case.  Their other wines are good but I can’t buy everything.  We are always running out of Chard so I stocked up.

Ironstone – Murphys / Calaveras region.  Besides a stunningly beautiful site with great landscaping and one of our Gold Star Picnic Areas, Ironstone has some fine wines at very reasonable prices.  Their Cabs tend to be rather tasteless for me but Merlot, Syrah, and Cab Franc are wonderful.  They had an incredible case sale on Saturday of their export brands so I picked up a couple of cases of Chard for $30 a case.  (We’ve paid as low as $18 a case for decent wine at times.) This Chard is oaky and buttery which goes well with some of our evening appetizer dinners.  Ironstone often has great deals at events.  I would have bought far more if we had any space left at home for storage.

- jim

When Katya and I find a wine that is particularly interesting and flavorful I put the empty bottle in my office and aggregate a few to blog about.  While we like pretty much all the we pick up at wineries around California there are occasionally ones that really get our attention.  As usual I’m not going to tell you it has certain attributes because context changes taste but if you are looking for flavor and an exciting taste experience give any of these a try.

1. Ridge 2005 Santa Cruz Mountains Chardonnay Home Ranch.  Ridge is a mountain winery with a breath-taking view of Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay.  The picnic area has one of the best views in California.   Ridge has a reputation for outstanding wines and we feel their Chard is special.  Santa Cruz Mountains wines tend to have more nose and be more flavorable than elsewhere in California.  There are a few light soft wines made in this region but we find more taste adventure per bottle here and in Gilroy than anywhere else. This Chard fits that.  It is a fascinating blend of flavors that is unusual and we loved each sip.  It is worth going out of your way for.
2. Locatelli 2001 Cab Estate from Paso Robles.  This is a small family owned winery on a hill north of Paso in a rather warm zone.  The patriach arrived in 1898 from Italy and went right into the wine business. This is a classic Cab that doesn’t disappear when you swallow.  The nose is full and fun. The oak and berries and light tannins linger nicely but no burn.  It isn’t soft which is our preference.
3. Narrow Gate 2006 Petite Cuvee from El Dorado County.  Narrow Gate is a rather remote and little known mountain winery in the Sierra pines with the tasting in the working winery.  They have a nice picnic area under pines so it is like camping out in the Sierras.  The winemaker is very approachable and loves to take visitors on a tour de force.  The cuvee is a blend of Petite Sirah, Mourvedre, Zin, and Viognier.  So what is special?  The nose and taste are significantly more interesting than most blends.

OK, now I can clear out the bottles and get ready for the next unusual wines.  There are several from Hahn that are merit special attention and that post is coming up sometime this month.  We have six that we captured at the tasting room so give us time to try them again after a “waiting period”. 

- jim

OK, not gold. I’m hopeless at that. Excellent wine and questing adventure is vastly easier to find in the hills of the El Dorado wine region. Katya and I joined up with mostly local and Nevada tasters for the Tour de Vine, the region’s harvest festival.

El Dorado is about as laid-back as wine regions get. It is so laid back that only about half the wineries participated. That left 20 to visit in two days so we weren’t short of new experiences.  We found the wines everywhere to be excellent and with enough variety to keep it interesting.

We worked pretty hard and shot all the video and photos we need for the first version of the Discover El Dorado Wine Region video we’ll have available online this winter. We also tasted a little vino at Gold Hill, David Girard, Boeger, Narrow Gate, Sierra Vista, Holly’s Hill, Miraflores, Fitzpatrick, Perry Creek, Colibri Ridge, and Mt. Aukum.  (I taste, not drink, for the most part.)

El Dorado is probably the finest collection of mountain wineries in California and unbelievable back roads to explore!  There are about 40 that are regularly open to the public and they are scattered through the pine and oak hills.  Many have great views.  There are good to excellent picnic areas.  Between wineries enjoy the winding country roads and occasional Gold Rush architecture. Placerville is an old Gold Rush town with galleries, quaint coffee shops, and not enough quality restaurants downtown.

Services are limited in the Fairplay area.  One restaurant and a hardware store “downtown” and a gas station nearby.  Along Carson Road near Highway 50 are numerous fruit stands so stop and try the unfiltered apple cider and homemade pies.  Follow the local “Farm Trail” to other tasting adventures.

As always we were asked many times which winery is our favorite. We don’t pick favorites but you can find your own on WineQuesters.com when we have the winery profiles for this region online by early next year (2009).

- jim