Drying Out

Spent all day yesterday with D, Flux, Flux's Dad (Mr.B), and the Fiance in Amador and El Dorado valley for the Amador Valley wine tasting weekend.

What? Where is Amador Valley? They have wine?

Most people are familiar with Napa and Sonoma as the predominant wine growing and making areas of California. But with California being as fertile as it is and the wine industry expanding in various ways, you can find numerous wine growing and making areas in Livermore, Santa Cruz, Paso Robles, San Diego, as well as Amador and El Dorado Valleys.

Amador and El Dorado wine growing areas are just off the 50 north of Sacramento near Placerville.

Flux's Dad is a wine enthusiast and has been volunteering at the San Diego Wine Competition for the past 17 years. It's 3rd largest wine competition in the nation and one of the few that donate their proceeds to charity, namely a women's shelter in San Diego and a children's camp. One of the perks of volunteering is getting all the leftover bottles of wine.

Amador Valley happens to be one of Mr. B's favorite areas. The area grows and makes extensive amounts of Italiand and Rhone varietals: Barbera, Sangiovese, Viognier, Syrah, and Zinfindel. While you see most vines trellised or pruned to grow in rows along strung wires, the Zinfindel of left wild. Their shoots allowed to grow in every direction. They are called head trimmed Zin. The Rastafarians of the grapevine world.

For a flat fee, you get a lovely large wine tasting glass (plenty of room to swirl the wine), and a chance to walk into just about any of the wineries on the list and taste for free. Which is a deal considering if you went another weekend you'd pay $5-$10 per tasting flight at a winery. Plus many of the wineries served food and had live bands on hand. I'm really much more of a food person while the Fiance really enjoyed learning the vocabulary of tasting.

In addition to the Amador Valley wineries we hit a few more in El Dorado and one or two off the festival map, including Renwood which has some of the oldest vines in California. Here the vinestalks have considerable girth to them.

All in all we must have hit up 9-10 different wineries. whew! and tried on average 5-7 wines at each location! Though I do know which wines I enjoy, like I like whites and mild reds in general, I've only occassionally been able to figure out the smells and flavors to wine. Wasn't sure what body and structure was. We even tried some barrel tasting that were "quite green" but one that was better 2 months in the barrel than many of the bottled wines we tasted.

Wine tasting, like food, is partially about memory and experience. After 50 wines, I gained enough short term memory to remember why one wine was better or worse than another. By 1 pm I wasn't "drinking" any of the wines just tasting and spitting.

I'm hoping the Fiance will give a better run down of the wines we tasted where. I really need to take notes the next time if I really want to be a connoisseur, then again, I think I'll be just as happy simply sipping away.

Where we sipped
Domaine de la Terre Rouge and Easton - Our first stop. Two wineries right next to one another. Not too memorable but enough to jumpstart our tastebuds. Most memorable thing was a large Doggie Diner head in excellent condition planted next to an event room they had.
Dobra Zemlja - Run by this Hungarian guy and his wife. Refuses to enter his wines in competitions saying that his clients judgement is enough. Rarely reviewed. Doesn't make his wines in any particular "style" just wants to make the biggest wines possible. A memorable place, one of the smaller wineries. Very big, bold wines which are a tastebud adventure.
Shenendoah Vineyards
Sobon Estate - I think it was here that had a museum with household artifacts from the late 1800s. They also had olive oil tasting.
Latcham
Charles B. Mitchell Vineyards - They had one of the better barrel tastings of Sangiovese. I guess people do barrel tastings and try to determine if this will be a good wine when bottled and if they like it, they'll buy a case in advance.
Oakstone
Perry Creek Vineyards - Had one of the more interesting bottle lables. One of the last places we went to. By then, our tastebuds and brains were getting a bit burnt out.
Renwood
and one other that wasn't one the map that I can't remember