Red, white and gold
The mines may be closed, but rich soil and high elevations are producing wines of great value in the Sierra Foothills
Linda Murphy, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, February 6, 2003
Soon after James Marshall discovered gold along California's American River in 1848, thousands of miners and entrepreneurs rushed to the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, hell-bent on striking it rich. They built camps, towns, hotels and banks, spent their money in saloons and bordellos, told tall tales and hanged men without trials.
They also made wine -- lots of it. Some 100 wineries thrived in the Sierra foothills in the late 1800s. Although many a miner had a thirst for hooch, much of it brewed illegally, others from Europe, mostly French and Italians, preferred their traditional beverage and brought vine cuttings with them to grow grapes and make wine.
When the gold ran out, the miners moved on and winemakers closed shop, their departure made more certain by the root louse phylloxera, which destroyed many vineyards in the 1880s. The death spike came in 1919, when Prohibition robbed the wine industry of 14 years of legitimate business. Ghost wineries dotted the landscape, and vineyards were abandoned or replanted to apples or pears.
Today there is once again gold in them thar hills -- liquid gold in the form of Zinfandel, Barbera, Syrah, Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon, made by nearly 100 wineries that have sprung up in the Sierra Foothills since the 1960s. Winemakers have found the Foothills to be a hospitable place to make bold, deeply flavored wines that are, for the most part, very good values.
A recognized American Viticultural Area, the Sierra Foothills region is a mighty big chunk of land, encompassing 2.6 million acres and covering portions of eight counties -- Yuba, Nevada, Placer, El Dorado, Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne and Mariposa. By comparison, the North Coast AVA, at 3 million acres, is slightly ahead of the foothills.
Although praiseworthy Foothills wines are made in Calaveras and Nevada counties, it's the wineries of Amador and El Dorado that get most of the attention. Connected by Highway 49, Amador and El Dorado are conjoined twins that aren't all that much alike, save for their Gold Rush history and ability to turn out very good bottles.
"Amador wines, particularly Zinfandel, are usually bigger and bolder than those of El Dorado," says Leon Sobon, proprietor of Amador County's Sobon Estate and Shenandoah Vineyards. "El Dorado wines are usually lighter and more elegant."
It's all about elevation. Most of Amador's vineyards are nestled in the undulating hills of the Shenandoah Valley near Plymouth, where cows graze and grain grows tall, at an average elevation of 1,800 feet. It's warm during the growing season, up to 100 degrees in the summer, which favors Mediterranean grapes such as Zinfandel, Syrah, Barbera and Sangiovese. The soils are mostly decomposed granite, and many sites have the iron-laden, brick-red dirt found in Tuscany.
While Amador is rolling hills and oak trees, El Dorado is mountains and pines, with vineyards planted as high as 3,500 feet. It's cooler than Amador, and snow falls at the higher elevations in December and January. Lower daytime temperatures make growing Bordeaux grape varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc possible in El Dorado.
There is plenty of Zinfandel, Syrah, Sangiovese and Barbera in El Dorado, though the wines show a leaner structure and higher natural acidity. They're lower in alcohol and lack the jammy, earthy Amador characteristics.
Boeger is the oldest El Dorado winery, if one starts counting after Prohibition.
Greg Boeger was born into the business, the grandson of Anton Nichelini, the Swiss-Italian founder of Nichelini Winery east of Rutherford in Napa Valley. In 1857, another Swiss-Italian, Giovanni Napoleon Lombardo, planted a vineyard northeast of Placerville, which was later converted to a fruit orchard. In 1972, Boeger and his wife, Sue, purchased the former Lombardo estate, which included an 1872 house and wine cellar.
"The vineyard had originally been planted to Zinfandel and Mission grapes," Boeger says as he surveys the steeply sloped property from its highest point, about 2,800 feet above sea level. "In replanting, we used cuttings from old- clone vines planted in the 1880s, and those vines now give us small clusters and small berries of very intensely flavored fruit."
Boeger and his son Justin blend consistently good wines from 28 grape varieties. The 1999 Walker Vineyard Zinfandel ($15) and 2000 Reserve Barbera ($25) are exceptional. Boeger is a terrific place to visit, with the 1872 cellar and former distillery serving as a wine library, reserve tasting room and minimuseum at the bottom of the hill, in stark contrast to the gleaming new main tasting room at the top.
One of Boeger's neighbors is Lava Cap Winery. Its owner, David Jones, a retired geology professor at UC Berkeley, knows his dirt, and he good- naturedly throws a handful of it on the notion that the Sierra Foothills are too hot to grow wine grapes, while Napa and Sonoma are not.
"Our summer daytime temperatures are the same as in Oakville (in the center of Napa Valley)," Jones says, "and we're cooler than St. Helena and Dry Creek Valley in Sonoma. A big difference is in how the vineyards are cooled. In the coastal regions -- Napa and Sonoma -- sites are cooled by fog; in El Dorado they're cooled by elevation.
"Fog cuts off sunlight, and it's sunlight, not heat, that vines need for energy. We don't get fog here between April 1 and the end of October, so the vines get a full day of sunlight, are cooled at night by Sierra breezes and as a result the grapes develop great depth and color."
Jones and his wife, Jeanne, and their sons -- Tom, the winemaker, and Charlie, the grape grower -- started Lava Cap in 1981, building the winery in 1986. The wines are stylish and refined, with just the right amount of oak influence. A crisp, flinty 2001 Chardonnay ($16.50) tops production at 4,000 cases a year. Red grapes get lots of attention, though, including a plush 2000 Syrah Reserve ($20) and an elegant, Bordeauxlike 2000 Cabernet Franc ($35).
Jones' studies show that most of the soils in the Foothills are weathered granite, yet the soils at Lava Cap were formed from volcanic rock dispersed from volcanoes east of Lake Tahoe. It's the source of Lava Cap's deep aromatics.
Twenty miles south of Placerville is the 2-year-old El Dorado County appellation of Fair Play, where a handful of wineries make interesting wines from mountain-grown fruit.
Perry Creek is the largest producer in Fair Play, making 18,000 cases a year from its mission-style winery. Winemaker Nancy Steel moved from Mazzocco Vineyards in Sonoma County to Perry Creek in 1993, and soon realized that White Zinfandel, Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc were not the right wines to be making in Fair Play. Her focus now is on Zinfandel, Rhone varietals including Viognier, Syrah and Mourvedre, and, true to her Sonoma County roots, Cabernet Sauvignon.
There is a lot of buzz about Cedarville Vineyard, a Zinfandel, Syrah and Grenache brand owned by wife and husband team Susan Marks and Jonathan Lachs --
UC Davis enology grads who released their first wine from the 1998 vintage. The 2000 Grenache ($22) is particularly impressive, though at 91 cases it is difficult to find.
It may not be playing fair, but the Latcham family -- Frank, son Jon and Jon's wife, Margaret -- has two wineries in Fair Play: Latcham Vineyards and Granite Springs Winery. The Latcham-labeled wines -- Zinfandel, Barbera, Petite Sirah and Cabernet Franc -- are rich and well-stuffed.
The Latchams purchased Granite Springs Winery in 1997, and from there they turn out good-value, great-quality wines, the best representatives being Zinfandel and Petite Sirah.
El Dorado has made a name for producing Rhone-style wines, and no one has been more resolute in that campaign than John and Barbara MacCready. Since planting their vineyard in 1974, the MacCreadys have made fruit-rich yet elegant Syrahs, Viogniers and a red Rhone blend called Fleur du Montagne, helping launch the California Rhone Ranger movement.
Drive a few miles south of El Dorado and you're in Amador County. The historical figure here is Sobon Estate, the former D'Agostini Winery that was established in 1856, survived Prohibition and was purchased in 1989 by Los Altos refugees Leon and Shirley Sobon. The Sobons also own Shenandoah Vineyards and between the two brands they make quality Zinfandel, Barbera, Viognier, Roussanne, Syrah and Mourvedre.
Many Amador and El Dorado vintners left the big city, taking advantage of lower-than-Napa land prices in the Foothills and either relocating their young families or preparing for retirement.
For Suzy and Jim Gullett of Vino Noceto, it was a fondness for Tuscany that spurred the former Lafayette couple to move the family to Amador. Their wines - - including a lovely 2000 Sangiovese ($15) -- are true to the Italian style, yet approachable and fruit-forward in a California sort of way.
"We became sold on Sangiovese in Italy," Jim Gullett says, "but our choice (of grape variety) became a function of wanting to do something different. Planting Sangiovese was riskier than Zinfandel, but it was easier for us to adhere to the road map that set us apart."
Neighbor Montevina, founded in 1973 as the first Amador winery built after Prohibition, has a 2-year-old showpiece winery in the Shenandoah Valley and ownership by Napa Valley's Sutter Home Winery. Sutter Home's impact on the Sierra Foothills wine industry cannot be understated.
Montevina founder Walter Field's son-in-law, Cary Gott, was the brand's first winemaker and showed others that high-quality Zinfandel could be made in Amador. Prior to that, Robert Trinchero of Sutter Home was introduced to Amador Zin by Sacramento wine and food merchant Darrell Corti. In 1968, Trinchero purchased Zinfandel from Ken Deaver's now-117-year-old vineyard in the Shenandoah Valley for Sutter Home, then bought Montevina in 1988.
In between, White Zinfandel was born. Sutter Home had found great success with its Amador Zins, and part of the winemaking process, termed saignee, called for the removal of the free-run juice from the tanks, thus intensifying the color and flavor of the remaining grapes.
"In 1975, Corti tasted the saignee and said, 'Don't throw that out or blend it; treat it like a rose,' " current Montevina winemaker Jeff Meyers says. "He offered to buy half the wine to sell at his Corti Brothers store. That became the first White Zinfandel, from the bleed-off of Deaver Vineyard Zin. Now Sutter Home sells 4 to 4.5 million cases of White Zin a year."
Under the always-experimenting Meyers, Montevina has increased production of Zinfandel, including a vineyard-designated wine from Deaver, and added dozens of clones and rootstocks of Sangiovese, Barbera and other Italian grape varieties to its vineyards. For the moment, it's Syrah that now has Meyers' attention.
"Zinfandel will always be king here and a lot of work has been done with Italian grapes," he says. "But Syrah is going to be the next stalwart. We have Rhone Valley conditions in Amador, with very warm growing seasons and thin, rocky, heavy soils. The versatility of Syrah makes it a natural choice for Amador."
Down the road apiece is Domaine de la Terre Rouge, husband-and-wife owners Bill Easton and Jane O'Riordan-Easton's winery named for the iron-rich soils of Shenandoah Valley and the couple's fondness for the wines of France's Rhone Valley.
The goal, Bill Easton says, is to express the terroir, or the total environment from which each wine comes, in each wine he makes. He buys grapes from 24 vineyards throughout the Foothills, ranging in elevation from 800 to 3, 400 feet.
"Taming the Foothills was my goal when I got here," Easton says. "I use Burgundian techniques to make fruit-forward wines that are easy to drink, wines that will age 15 years yet be drinkable on release. We have the Rhone's Cote Rotie (Syrah-producing) region right here in Amador."
Two Napa Valley winemakers with ties to the Sierra Foothills, Scott Harvey and Marco Cappelli, serve as biased experts on the region. Harvey, president and winemaker at Folie a Deux in St. Helena since 1996, is credited by many Amador winemakers with creating enthusiasm for the appellation in his quarter- century of winemaking in Amador County.
He grew up in the Foothills and founded the Santino brand and later the Renwood label, known for its big, come-out-swinging, old-vine Zinfandels. The star was the Grandpere (Grandfather) Vineyard Zin, a robust wine made from Shenandoah Valley vines believed to be 130 years old.
"What every winemaker wants is an expression of the vineyard and soil in the wine he makes," Harvey says. "If it expresses that area and nothing else does, the wine is unique, you can market it, you can say to wine drinkers that they can't get this anywhere else. Amador does that."
Cappelli, the winemaker at Swanson Vineyards in Rutherford, purchased the Herbert Ranch in El Dorado County a year ago. It's planted to Zinfandel, Syrah and a bit of Sauvignon Blanc; Cappelli will sell the grapes to others while he continues to make wine at Swanson.
"El Dorado wines have balance, drinkability and deliciousness," Cappelli says. "They don't have the size or the extract of Napa Valley wines, but you . . . get ripe flavors plus balanced acidity, pH and alcohol levels, and the wines aren't too tannic. It's pretty much a no-brainer.'
UPCOMING WINE EVENTS
Amador Vintners 10th Annual Barrel Tasting Weekend at Amador County wineries,
10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. $50. Amador Vintners, (888) 655-8614, www.amadorwine.com.
El Dorado Passport Weekend at El Dorado County wineries. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. April 5-6, 12-13 $55. El Dorado Winery Association, (800) 306-3956, www.eldoradowine.org.
FRUIT OF THE FOOTHILLS VINES
Amador and El Dorado county wine producers are known for offering good QPR -- quality to price ratio -- particularly for Zinfandel and Italian and Rhone varietals. Availability varies widely and some of the most exciting bottles cost a bit more, yet are worth a search. Contact the wineries by phone or via their Web sites for information on where the wines can be purchased. All offer direct sales.