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 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

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