Day 3:
We leave our comfy and fancy confines of Healdsburg for the unknown near the small city of Plymouth. Plymouth sits East of Sacramento in the edge of the Sierra Foothills AVA, which is a large AVA covering a lot of ground running North and South. Plymouth is very near the sub AVA of Shenandoah Valley, which is just south of El Dorado AVA and on the edge of Amador County. This area is knows for zinfandel and petite syrah. Also a surprising amount of Italian varieties, especially barbera.
So we heard from people that Plymouth area was like Sonoma 15 years ago. Well, no, that is not true. More like Sonoma 30 years ago. There ain't a lot there in terms of town/restaurant/visitor amenities. There was a little deli type place called Amador Market and it was a great spot for salads/sandwiches for lunch upon our arrival. Also had some local beer on tap. Thumbs up on this place.
After lunch we check into our house, which sits on the grounds of a small winery about 6 miles outside of Plymouth. There are several wineries nearby, so we decide to check out a couple. First on the list is Karmere, which seemed interesting to me because they make a wide variety of wines including some sparkling and they have a female winemaker which is still unusual in the industry. It was close enough to walk, but the road was so narrow it wasn't safe so we drove over. No tasting fee, so we tasted through several wines. In general, they were pretty average and forgettable. We were there a while as the ladies sat outside so I was constantly carrying new tastings out to the patio. We bought a bottle to drink and enjoyed the grounds, but I can't really recommend this place. I was surprised by the amount of traffic that came through the tasting room while we were there.
Next we headed back southwest to the Turley Amador tasting room. Turley does charge a tasting fee, but waives it with some purchase. Wines were good to fantastic. We bought a white to drink with dinner and a locally grown zinfandel to bring home. Turley wines are certainly no secret, but I've rarely drank them in the past. I liked the wines and even my wife, who is not a bold red fan, thought they were all quite good. This is a big enterprise, so the tasting room is more like Sonoma or Napa with a couple of sales associates pouring and giving the generic, scripted spiel, but still a lot of fun.
Since we had time, we stopped at one other place near us called Bella Piazza. oh my gosh, super cheesy and super sweet (not intentional, just made to appeal to a broad audience) wines. not expensive and I bought one bottle for like $24, but man, this place was not for me. Just a huge tourist trap kinda place. do not go
We stayed in for dinner and drank some wine and a lot of bourbon while sitting on the porch. Great night except the beds in the house weren't great and wife and I slept on a queen which seemed really small.
Friday, day 4 and our final day for tasting
Went into town and had breakfast at the greasy spoon diner. The wife wanted to hike so we made a long drive up into the Foothills, driving through Placerville looking for a trailhead I had seen on Google. Well, trail wasn't much, so we drove around checking out the sites (very windy and hilly roads) and wound our way to Somerset where there is a small restaurant called Gold Vine Grill. Little mom and pop place but nice local wine list and good food. While there, the waitress recommended we drive to Sly Park around Jenkinson lake to to some hiking. It was a long drive, but very pretty and the lake was gorgeous. Just what we needed.
Ready for some more tasting, we went to a very small winery that is near Somerset called Cantiga. The winemaker is an engineer by training and is very passionate about his vision to make wines with no secondary (malolactic) fermentation and no residual sugars. They make several wines from neighboring vineyards and their estate grapes and we tasted a lineup of grenache, syrah, petite syrah, shiraz, barbera, zinfandel and one white semillion. The tasting was led by the owner and his assistant winemaker. Super nerdy wine guys, which I just loved. The wines were fantastic, expressive of their place, acidic and just damn tasty. they provided thoughtful food bites with each wine which helped in the tasting, for sure. Like a lot of the smaller tasting rooms in the area, no fee for a tasting but only open around weekends. We bought a case and I look forward to ordering more. One very cool thing is they had 2012 wines in their current releases. Fantastic!
We met back up with our friends at another winery I had targeted to visit, Skinner Vineyards near the town of Fair Play, part of the Fair Play sub-AVA. Very hilly area not far from Cantiga. This is a much more professional operation. The owner is an insurance millionaire and the property reflects that, but the wines are compelling.
The views from the tasting room rival any I've seen in California including Napa, Sonoma, Paso, etc. A gorgeous spot. We just sat on their patio and drank for over 2 hours. Primarily red wines, but also an excellent rose and interesting white rhone blends. they had an estate white '13 blend that was outstanding. I also liked that there were '12 wines on their tasting menu, so fun to get a bit of perspective on their wines as they might change and vary from vintage to vintage. Obviously, the winemaker wasn't there but the 2 people manning the tasting room were excellent and we had a lot of fun.
There were a couple of other very small places I wanted to visit, but just didn't have time because of how long we spent at Skinner, but hey, I'll take good company and great views over running around and doing tastings.
Saturday we woke up and headed back to San Jose for the flight home. We used AA points, but obviously flying SW out of Sacramento would have been much, much more convenient.
so that's it, a fairly hectic 4 day wine trip
We leave our comfy and fancy confines of Healdsburg for the unknown near the small city of Plymouth. Plymouth sits East of Sacramento in the edge of the Sierra Foothills AVA, which is a large AVA covering a lot of ground running North and South. Plymouth is very near the sub AVA of Shenandoah Valley, which is just south of El Dorado AVA and on the edge of Amador County. This area is knows for zinfandel and petite syrah. Also a surprising amount of Italian varieties, especially barbera.
So we heard from people that Plymouth area was like Sonoma 15 years ago. Well, no, that is not true. More like Sonoma 30 years ago. There ain't a lot there in terms of town/restaurant/visitor amenities. There was a little deli type place called Amador Market and it was a great spot for salads/sandwiches for lunch upon our arrival. Also had some local beer on tap. Thumbs up on this place.
After lunch we check into our house, which sits on the grounds of a small winery about 6 miles outside of Plymouth. There are several wineries nearby, so we decide to check out a couple. First on the list is Karmere, which seemed interesting to me because they make a wide variety of wines including some sparkling and they have a female winemaker which is still unusual in the industry. It was close enough to walk, but the road was so narrow it wasn't safe so we drove over. No tasting fee, so we tasted through several wines. In general, they were pretty average and forgettable. We were there a while as the ladies sat outside so I was constantly carrying new tastings out to the patio. We bought a bottle to drink and enjoyed the grounds, but I can't really recommend this place. I was surprised by the amount of traffic that came through the tasting room while we were there.
Next we headed back southwest to the Turley Amador tasting room. Turley does charge a tasting fee, but waives it with some purchase. Wines were good to fantastic. We bought a white to drink with dinner and a locally grown zinfandel to bring home. Turley wines are certainly no secret, but I've rarely drank them in the past. I liked the wines and even my wife, who is not a bold red fan, thought they were all quite good. This is a big enterprise, so the tasting room is more like Sonoma or Napa with a couple of sales associates pouring and giving the generic, scripted spiel, but still a lot of fun.
Since we had time, we stopped at one other place near us called Bella Piazza. oh my gosh, super cheesy and super sweet (not intentional, just made to appeal to a broad audience) wines. not expensive and I bought one bottle for like $24, but man, this place was not for me. Just a huge tourist trap kinda place. do not go
We stayed in for dinner and drank some wine and a lot of bourbon while sitting on the porch. Great night except the beds in the house weren't great and wife and I slept on a queen which seemed really small.
Friday, day 4 and our final day for tasting
Went into town and had breakfast at the greasy spoon diner. The wife wanted to hike so we made a long drive up into the Foothills, driving through Placerville looking for a trailhead I had seen on Google. Well, trail wasn't much, so we drove around checking out the sites (very windy and hilly roads) and wound our way to Somerset where there is a small restaurant called Gold Vine Grill. Little mom and pop place but nice local wine list and good food. While there, the waitress recommended we drive to Sly Park around Jenkinson lake to to some hiking. It was a long drive, but very pretty and the lake was gorgeous. Just what we needed.
Ready for some more tasting, we went to a very small winery that is near Somerset called Cantiga. The winemaker is an engineer by training and is very passionate about his vision to make wines with no secondary (malolactic) fermentation and no residual sugars. They make several wines from neighboring vineyards and their estate grapes and we tasted a lineup of grenache, syrah, petite syrah, shiraz, barbera, zinfandel and one white semillion. The tasting was led by the owner and his assistant winemaker. Super nerdy wine guys, which I just loved. The wines were fantastic, expressive of their place, acidic and just damn tasty. they provided thoughtful food bites with each wine which helped in the tasting, for sure. Like a lot of the smaller tasting rooms in the area, no fee for a tasting but only open around weekends. We bought a case and I look forward to ordering more. One very cool thing is they had 2012 wines in their current releases. Fantastic!
We met back up with our friends at another winery I had targeted to visit, Skinner Vineyards near the town of Fair Play, part of the Fair Play sub-AVA. Very hilly area not far from Cantiga. This is a much more professional operation. The owner is an insurance millionaire and the property reflects that, but the wines are compelling.
The views from the tasting room rival any I've seen in California including Napa, Sonoma, Paso, etc. A gorgeous spot. We just sat on their patio and drank for over 2 hours. Primarily red wines, but also an excellent rose and interesting white rhone blends. they had an estate white '13 blend that was outstanding. I also liked that there were '12 wines on their tasting menu, so fun to get a bit of perspective on their wines as they might change and vary from vintage to vintage. Obviously, the winemaker wasn't there but the 2 people manning the tasting room were excellent and we had a lot of fun.
There were a couple of other very small places I wanted to visit, but just didn't have time because of how long we spent at Skinner, but hey, I'll take good company and great views over running around and doing tastings.
Saturday we woke up and headed back to San Jose for the flight home. We used AA points, but obviously flying SW out of Sacramento would have been much, much more convenient.
so that's it, a fairly hectic 4 day wine trip
