Rainy day diversions

[CtznCane]

Rain Friday night and Saturday morning forced a delay in my planned fence repair project so we decided to go to a few wineries instead. One region we had not visited was the Foothills of Amador County (around Plymouth) nor have we gone to the El Dorado area either. Since our start was rather late (Noon with a 2 hour drive) we decided to head out with Renwood being our main destination.

While I'm a big Zin fan and the foothills are a good Zin region, I had no familiarityfor the most part with any of the wineries in the area with the exception of Renwood. Even with Renwood, the wines I've typically seen of theirs down in the Bay Area is quite limited.

The wineries we wound up visiting were Renwood, Shenandoah Vineyards, Dobra Temlja, Sobon Estate, and Villa Toscano. While it is definitely a red wine region and we weren't up there to taste whites, we were very pleased with the wines we tasted. The Zins across the board were nice, I'll hit a few of the highlights.

Renwood: While Renwood is known as a top Zin producer, I had previously only had their lowest level Zin and had not been overly impressed. Getting to try more of the spectrum of their Zins really changed my opinion. While all of their zins that I tried were nice, the one I liked best was the 2003 'Grandmere' Zin. The color is a slightly lighter garnet than other zins and the aroma is delicate yet warm and inviting. Very nice fruit yet still well structured with a light pepper/clove quality. I was surprised that this one was 15.5 alcohol as it did not have that big jammy quality often found in the high alcohol Zins.

2004 Zinfandel Amador Ice - We found this desert wine quite delightful. 44 degrees brix at harvest, 10% alchohol and 24% residual sugar by weight, with the grapes frozen after harvest. Blush in color, light yet intense flavor and a sheer delight to drink.

Shenandoah Vineyards - Located directly across the street from Renwood

Pleasant wines across the board. Of particular note were there ReZerve wines. The Cabernet Sauv, Zinfandel Paul's Vineyard, and Barbera. Particularly nice were the Cab & Zin and at $24 per bottle we felt these were also good values.

An even better Value I found there was there 'Amador County Zin'. A pleasant, jammy (yet only 14.4 alcohol) wine, very well rounded and at 9.95 a great every day drinker.

Sobon Estate - This is the sister winery to Shenandoah. Nice wines across the board and of particular note was their 2003 ReZerve Primitivo. This is the first time I've encountered this grape and from what I understand there are about 4 wineries up in the Amador area making it. I know this is an Italian grape and apparently a genalogical twin to Zinfandel yet morphologically different. The wine was very nice, very similar to the zins but it seemed to have a bit more finesse to it. How many others are familiar with this grape? My interest has been piqued.

Dobra Temlja - While I enjoyed all of their reds, their Milan Ruz and Zin were my favorites. The Milan Ruz, their jug wine is a Zin-Syrah-Sangiovese blend. Nice, bold, and pleasant, just the kind of wine I like to have around for lazy afternoons with sports on tv and a barbecue going. ----- Now their Zin is a big one. The highest alcohol one we encountered. 16.8%. While big and jammy though it still had good structure and was not flabby. One trait we noticed across the board were that the Zins did not have that high alcohol taste/too jammy/flabby quality that many high alcohol ones from other areas have.

Villa Toscana - The last stop on our impromptu journey unfortunately was a bit rushed as we caught them right before closing. Again, pleasant wines (for those we tasted.) I liked their Barbera best among the reds though I don't drink enough Barbera to really have a good feel for the varietal overall. One wine we do like very much is Orange Muscat and Villa Toscano's Orange Muscat is among the best we have found anywhere. Absolutely delightful.

Our overall impression of the area wine wise was very favorable. Of note too is that out of 5 wineries visited, the only charge was at Renwood ($3) if you wanted to taste their reserve flight of wines and at Shenandoah/Sobon of $4.95 (glass included) for their reserve wines, but if you bought the glass at one you could do the reserve tastings at both wineries. Typically, for us, we plan to buy at least 1 bottle anywhere we visit if there is something we like or unless the people are not friendly. This is definitely an area for Zins and more Italian style wines. Just one more jewell in California's diverse wine country. In fact though this is one of the oldest of the wine areas in California.

Now that we've had a taste we look forward to getting back up to this area again soon and venturing even a little further East up into the El Dorado area next time.

[MaxH]

Thanks for the report, Cane. El Dorado and Amador counties have made a name for themselves -- in Zinfandels especially, itn't it? Some people in other parts of California specialize in collecting Zins from there.

A little experience there in person so far gave me the impression of many small wineries that are relatively well organized, visitor-friendly, and refreshingly real (that is, focused on their wines: no recently built ancient buildings with instant ivy, or "visitor centers," encountered yet). More like a well run version of many European winemaking areas with small but successful family-run wineries.