Category: Places to Visit

The Oxbow Public Market’s (http://oxbowpublicmarket.com/) name comes from the shape of the Napa River.  The course of a river may encounter an obstruction, causing the river to bend in a U-shape around it.  This creates a widening of the river, effectively a lake.  This is called an oxbow, because it resembles the U-shaped yolk placed around the necks of oxen.  Such an oxbow occurs in the Napa River, at the town of Napa and this is where they have erected the Oxbow Public Market.

It is various things for different people: a place to buy food and wine, a tourist attraction and a site for casual and slightly more formal dining.  It is a truth universally acknowledged that a person who loves good wine loves good food as well, so the Oxbow Public market has become quite a magnet for those who take a little time away from wineries to venture into town.  As the weekends can be awfully crowded on Route 29 and the Silverado Trail, Napa Valley visitors might find it a good idea to visit Napa instead, making the market quite an attractive stop.

For one thing, the views over the oxbow are quite beautiful.  As you cross the First Street bridge approaching the market, you see the broadening of the river, and the buildings alongside it.  It is a  particularly attractive view at sunset.

The Napa River oxbow.  Photo courtesy of the Iron Pig.

 The interior of the market is a mix of kiosks and booths hosting purveyors of fruits, vegetables, sausages, wines, books, ground coffee, bread and spices.  Local people actually do shop there, but a great number of the people you’ll find in the Oxbow Public Market are tourists.  Of course, the same can be said of New York’s Chelsea Market, Seattle’s Pike Street Market or Victor Hugo Market in Toulouse, France, Barcelona’s La Boqueria, or other urban markets around the world.   For the visitors, ice cream, hamburgers, chocolates, cupcakes and pizza are available.

The interior of the Oxbow Public Market. Photo courtesy of Madison Marquette.

Then again, if you’re a real foodie (and most wine lovers are, so we’ve observed) you like looking at the food available in any city you’re visiting, even if you don’t have a kitchen nearby to cook it in.  It is certainly something we do in our travels.  If nothing else, seeing all the culinary bounty fires up the appetite.  When that occurs, there are restaurants in the market as well.

Of course, there are many restaurants in Napa outside the market, some of them quite good.  The point is, you don’t have to eat at the market but you can.  Much like going wine tasting, it’s as much about the experience as the food itself.  And in this case, the Oxbow Public Market is symbolic of the revival of Napa, which had been left behind as Yountville and St. Helena, up the highway a bit, became meccas for food lovers on a wine tasting vacation.  Those are indeed great destinations, but the town of Napa should be included in your Napa Valley wine trips.  And the Oxbow Public market is fine place to see when you’re in town.

 

Lavender field in Nyons, France . (Proto courtesy of Provenceweb.fr)

 Wine regions around the world all have one thing in common: vineyards, of course.  As you travel in the Wine Country in France, some have more to offer, such as historical villages, unique churches, Roman bridges, mountain views, gourmet food, farmers’ markets, pottery, art, fields of flowers, orchardsand agriculture.   A sector of the southeastern part of France, called the Drôme Provençale, has all of these  things and more; this is where we will take you in this article.

Market day in Nyons, France.  Photo courtesy of francerevisited.com

This part of France is best known for its Rhône wines, lavender fields, but also for its apricot orchards and the famous olives grown in the small village of Nyons, where you can stop at the Cooperative for a taste of their olives and the local wines.  You can drive through beautiful little villages like Sainte Cécile-les-Vignes (where we had a memorable lunch at the small hotel La Farigoule), Cairanne, Rasteau, Gigondas, Vacqueyras, Beaume-de-Venise, Châteauneuf-du-Pape (all Côte-du-Rhône villages).   Then there are Orange and its Roman arena and Suze-la-Rousse with its castle, home of the Université du Vin (Wine University).  Here there are laboratories and tasting rooms that are unique in Europe, offering courses in oenology and management for the wine industry.  All those villages are surrounded by vineyards overlooked by mountains: the Mont Ventoux and the Dentelles de Montmirail.

The Université du Vin.  Photo courtesy of Les Châteaux de la Drôme.

The village of Châteauneuf-du-Pape is the best known Rhône village, thanks to its famous and unique wines.  The village itself is certainly worth visiting.   You can park in the village, have a delicious lunch at an outdoor café and walk to some of the wineries in the village. Other vineyards are just a short drive from the town, where you will find Domaine Beaurenard,  Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe, Château Beaucastel to name just a few of the most famous.

Châteauneuf-du-Pape, France.  Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.com

This is a favorite part of France for Lucie, since she has old friends in Nyons. She knows most of the villages and can drive you around (if you ask her).  Being a member of the Commanderie des Côtes du Rhône (Rhône wine society) as Chevalière (knight), she is quite knowledgeable about Rhône wines and she happens to have some connections in this part of the world, which will bring a few future articles on the subject.

Isn’t the Drôme Provençale inviting?

Power Tasting isn’t really about reporting the news, but we feel we owe it to our readers to give a description of what it’s like to go wine tasting in early 2018, in what we like to call Napa/Noma.  The fires that ravaged many areas of Napa and Sonoma Counties are out now, and if you smell smoke, it’s probably from people’s fireplaces.  If you don’t go searching out the most badly damaged areas such as Atlas Peak in Napa and Fountaingrove in Santa Rosa, you would not particularly know that the conflagrations occurred.

There are, of course, numerous signs that they did.  There are billboards announcing fire-related charities and lawyers to help with cases.  Most poignant for us was what we didn’t see: as we drove up Route 101 in Santa Rosa, the Hilton we used to stay at and the nearby landmark, the Round Barn are no longer there.  Considering the loss of life and those made homeless, these are certainly lesser tragedies, but for frequent visitors such as ourselves, they are stark reminders of what happened there.

The Round Barn, before the fire.  Photo courtesy of the San Jose Mercury News.

At the same time, for those wondering whether to go wine tasting in the affected areas, the answer is definitely “yes”.  For one thing, it’s a chance to aid the local economy that is still feeling the shock.  For another, you get the chance to speak with the people who lived through the disaster and hear their personal stories.  Interestingly, the people we spoke with all knew someone who had experienced significant losses but did not themselves.  With a few lamentable exceptions, almost all the wineries were spared.  Even more remarkable, there was very little damage to the vineyards, although one well-known producer did tell us that they lost a few rows in one of theirs.

The rest told stories of extremely hard work, miraculous escapes and good news for the 2017 release.  Over and over we heard that a vineyard had just been picked the day before the flames came. One did admit that a portion of their crop at one sourced vineyard had been left on the vines because it was impossible for the trucks to get there.  For the most part, we heard that the grapes had been crushed and were in barrels before the fires occurred.

We are wine tasters, not growers or makers.  We are nonetheless concerned as to how the 2017 vintage will turn out in Northern California.  A new term has entered our vocabulary, “smoke taint”, which is different than the pleasant smokiness in certain wines, particularly Northern Rhônes and Pinot Noirs.  It’s a highly unpleasant taste, so we’ve read, akin to licking the bottom of a well-used ashtray.  It will be a few years before we learn whether Napa/Noma wines are affected.

If you go wine tasting there now, you’ll be offered 2014’s and 2015’s, with perhaps a newly released 2016 available.  We can happily report that we tasted a 2017 Sauvignon Blanc at Rochioli in Russian River and the taste was grapefruit, not smoke, and it was delicious.

It will be hard to forget these terrible fires, for years to come.  But the fact is that if your goal is wine tasting, you can visit Napa/Noma without fear.  It looks and feels the same as ever, even if the usual pleasures are mixed with more than a bit of sadness.

In the north of Portugal you’ll find the city of Porto, on the northern shore of the Douro River, where it debouches into the Atlantic.  The city’s name has an interesting history.  On the southern shore there is today a town called Vila Nova de Gaia, but it Roman times it was Gallia.  As the town prospered, the Lusitanians (as the Portuguese were then known) needed more room, so they built a port, or portum in Latin, on the north shore – contemporary Porto.  Today the country takes its name from these twin cities: Portum + Gallia = Portugal.

Porto as seen from Vila Nova de Gaia.  Photo courtesy of the Boston Globe.

And as wine lovers know, it also gave its name to a wine we call Port.  That fact alone makes Porto worth visiting, but it has many other attractions as well.  Among these are the Cathedral, the Eiffel bridge (same architect as Paris’ tower) also known as the Luis I, the Clerigos Tower and the Douro Waterfront.  While there is much excellent dining around the city, a particular favorite is on the waterfront, the wonderfully named La Case da Filha da Mae Preta or The House of Black Mae’s Daughter.  If you go, order the giant prawns in garlic sauce; they’re not on the menu but it’s the best dinner you can have there.

And of course, there’s Port to be tasted.  When you check into a hotel, after you sign the register, they hand you a glass of Port.  Now, that’s civilized!

The wine is pressed upriver and shipped in tanker trucks to the wineries, or lodges as they are known there in Vila Nova de Gaia.  [In the past they came down river on boats called rabelos.  These can still be seen in the river near the south shore, but are no longer in use.]  In Gaia, they are aged in casks, barrels or bottles, depending on the style of wine.  You can taste away at the Instituto do Vinho do Porto, which is the counterpart of the solara or tasting room in Lisbon.

If you are on the Porto side in the evening, you will see the Gaia hillside light up with enormous signs of all the Port houses you ever heard of…and a few you haven’t.  Many of them have tours and tastings, during the day of course.  Perhaps the best tour is at Sandeman’s which is also the easiest to reach.  There is a small bridge (not the high Eifel one) that you can walk across the Douro.  Turn right on the Gaia side and Sandeman is a few hundred feet down the road.  You’ll get a great view of Porto as well.  Your tour will explain the differences among dry, ruby, tawny, colheita, LBV and vintage ports and then you’ll get to taste some of them.

Photo courtesy of Monaloca.

Other lodges are less easy to reach but the consensus position is that the wines are better.  Each has certain attractions.  Ramos Pinto has a museum of their history.  Calem, one of Lucie’s favorite Ports, offers a fado (Portuguese blues) performance along with your tour.  The more famous names, such as Grahams and Taylor Fladgate, focus pretty much only on the wines.  Many require appointments.  Some have restaurants.  It’s a good idea to read up before you go wine tasting there.

Another good idea is to remember that Port  is a fortified wine, meaning that it is enriched with neutral grain brandy.  That makes it quite alcoholic, typically 20% or more.  That’s less than in whiskey but a heck of a lot more than in table wine.  So don’t plan too many tastings in one day.  Enjoy the beauty of your surroundings so you get the most out of Porto and its twin city, Vila Nova de Gaia.

Wine tasting comes where you find it.  For the most part, the most enjoyable tastings are at wineries alongside the vineyards where the grapes were grown.  But urban tasting has its charms as well, as we have written about before.  One of the great growing regions in Southern California is the Santa Rita Hills in Santa Barbara County, but it’s not close to anything much, unless you just happen to be passing through Lompoc.  For that reason, many of the best vineyards in the county have opened tasting rooms in the city of Santa Barbara.

There are two totally different wine tasting experiences to be had in Santa Barbara.  Uptown has some very elegant tasting rooms, many in chic shopping malls off the major streets.  We’ll save a write up on Uptown for another issue.  The other locale is called the Funk Zone and not without reason. Get ready to PAR-TEE!

Now that may not be to your taste in wine tasting.  If so, visit the Funk Zone as early as possible in the morning before the crowds arrive.  If the weather is good – and it’s almost always good in Santa Barbara – you can be sure that the crowds will arrive.  It would be one thing if we had to report that the wines weren’t worth tasting and the servers knew nothing about what they were pouring.  However, there are quite a few interesting wines to be tasted, often from small producers who can’t afford a fancy tasting room.

We don’t pretend to offer a comprehensive tour of the Funk Zone (or anywhere else, for that matter) but we can offer a few suggestions for some interesting tasting there.  Of course, being close to the Santa Rita Hills means that there will be a lot of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay to be sipped. And yet…

Photo courtesy of Discover Santa Barbara

Our favorite discovery in the Funk Zone was Kunin Wines.  The tasting room has the atmosphere of a breezy shore house and indeed it’s a short walking distance from the Pacific.  The majority of their wines are Rhône varietals: Viogner and Syrah leading the pack.  They have a few blends that they compare with Châteauneuf du Pape. Okay, they’re nothing like Châteauneufs but they are really nice California Rhônes which isn’t a bad thing at all.  We were there early in the day and it was quite sedate; when we stopped by in the afternoon a frat party had broken out.

Nearby is the Santa Barbara Wine Collective, a huge barnstyle building, which features a number of producers, most focused on Pinot Noirs.  You can sample all the wines from one wine maker or do comparative flights from several.  Our favorites were Babcock and good ol’ Fess Parker of Davy Crockett, Dan’l Boone and Pinot Noir fame.  We were pleasantly surprised at the knowledge of our server who seemed too young to know that much and explain it that well.  A nice touch is The Lark restaurant’s cafe in the same space, where you can get good food to go along with your tasting.

Photo courtesy of the Santa Barbara Wine Collective

Another chance to experiment is at the Valley Project, which offers a tour, in your glass,  of some unfamiliar grapes and terroirs of Santa Barbara County.  The building itself is an attractive, open space with a map of the region on an enormous chalk board behind the bar.  Not all the wines were to our taste, but it was a good chance to see what else was going on besides Santa Rita Hills Pinots.

If you’re young or young in spirit, the Funk Zone is for you.  If you’re not, you can still have a very good time there if you plan your day right.

If you’re driving north from Los Angeles to go wine tasting in the Central Coast, you will probably pass through or near to the town of Solvang.  If you’d like to do something different and just a little strange, get off the freeway and visit.  In the early part of the 20^th century, a group of Danish families emigrated to Santa Barbara County’s Santa Ynez Valley and set up farms.  The Danes set up a town called Solvang that reminded them of Denmark, with architecture, churches and food stores evoking their homeland.

Of course, when you have a place that is a bit exotic and quite scenic, tourists will follow.  So while the farming tradition of the area around Solvang is very much alive, the center of town is an attraction, one verging on cutesy.   The buildings are half-timbered and the windmills actually turn.  There’s a replica of Copenhagen’s famous Little Mermaid, and a bust of Hans Christian Andersen and restaurants where you can get smørrebrød, the famous open-faced sandwiches that are a staple of Danish fare.

Photo courtesy of Solvangusa.

We have recently been in Denmark and can assure you that Solvang has no more to do with that country than Las Vegas does with France.  Still, this doesn’t take away the pleasure of pretending you’re in Denmark.  Solvang really is pretty and it really does have its roots in Danish-American history.

Solvang may be an out of the way little town for many California visitors, but not for those who are there for wine tasting.  It is located at the doorstep of the Santa Rita Hills, which is the source for some very fine Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.  Many of the best wineries in the Santa Rita Hills have tasting rooms in the city of Santa Barbara, enough so that travelling to the vineyards for tasting purposes is unnecessary.  But if you like looking at rows of vines while you taste, Solvang can be a good place from which to travel into the Santa Rita Hills.  Moreover, it’s a short drive to Los Olivos and you’re already in the Santa Ynez Valley, so you’re right in the middle of Wine Country when you’re in Solvang.

Photo courtesy of Hendrik Breuer.

You don’t even have to leave Solvang to go wine tasting if you don’t want to.  There are at least a dozen tasting rooms in the town, of varying quality.  (Au Bon Climat used to have a tasting room there but has since moved into Santa Barbara.) We would advise that the reason to taste wine in Solvang is more about the atmosphere than the wine itself.

Wine Country is about wine, to be sure, but there are usually other things of interest, worth a visit.  You wouldn’t go wine tasting in Champagne without going to  Paris or in Tuscany without seeing Florence or Siena.  So it’s pleasant to take some time to visit a town like Solvang if you’re wine-tasting in the southern end of California’s Central Coast.  Okay, it’s not Paris or Florence, but Solvang and the Santa Ynez Valley can offer a pleasant way to spend a day of vacation or a weekend besides wine tasting.

At the southern end of San Francisco Bay there is the town of Santa Clara, which lends its name to the valley that runs south of it to Gilroy (called the “Garlic Capital of the World”), as well as to the AVA for the wines made there.  There are, according to the local wine trade association (http://www.santaclarawines.com/santa-clara-valley.html) twenty-five wineries in the valley, although that’s just the association’s membership, since we know a few that aren’t listed.

The northern end of Santa Clara Valley is better known by another name: Silicon Valley.  The town of Santa Clara abuts San Jose and other famous software producers, like Los Gatos and Sunnyvale.  These places are possible reasons you might be in the area, beyond wine tasting.  It was the case for us; we tacked on some tasting to a business trip.  Silicon Valley, of course, has long shed its agricultural roots but there are a few wineries that could be interesting to visit.  J. Lohr Vineyards (https://www.jlohr.com/) is on a typical urban street in San Jose and has little or no wine country ambiance, but it does have some creditable wines that are often found in wine stores and on restaurant lists.  We have previously written about Testarossa Winery (http://www.testarossa.com/) in Los Gatos, which offers a superb tasting experience and some top-notch Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays as well.  Maybe you can cut your last meeting short and visit these two, although they are quite far apart.

As is the case in much of California’s Wine Country, Route 101 is the main stem through the more southerly and more rural section of Santa Clara Valley.  A half-hour out of San Jose you’ll find a number of wineries to visit.  This is the Morgan Hill district and is the area in Santa Clara Valley with the densest population of wineries.  We’d like to report on some great discoveries, but for the most part we weren’t as impressed with the wineries here as we were with those in the urban areas.  There was at least one that was a gift shop that made wine rather than vice versa, so beware where you go.

Sycamore Creek Vineyards (http://www.sycamorecreekvineyards.com/) offers a very modernistic picnic area, with high metal stools clustered around stone planters with what appear to be olive trees rather than sycamores in the middle.  The winery is a massive industrial building with the barrel room and a metal bar to one side.

Sycamore Creek’s picnic area.  Photo courtesy of Léal Vineyards, Inc.

Kirgin Cellars (http://www.kirigincellars.com/) is California Wine Country the way it used to be…a long, long time ago. They have been making wine since 1916, and it shows.  Their original tasting room is still there and it gives the impression that hobbits must live there.  They also have another, larger tasting room that is actually modern but designed to look as ancient as the original one.  With a wood-burning stove in the middle, it truly reminds you of wine making and tasting in another era.

Kirgin Cellars “new” tasting room

The town of Morgan Hill is where you’ll want to go for lunch.  We learned after we visited that Morgan Hill is heavily populated by Silicon Valley zillionaires and it seems to follow as day follows night that people with money like to dine out.  Monterey Road, not far from Route 101 is chock-a-block full of restaurants, some upscale, some not.  You’ll have quite a few to choose from.

Santa Clara Valley is scenic in much the same way that California Vineyard areas are all scenic.  The hills roll, the roads twist and the vines grow in serried rows up to the horizon.  We wouldn’t call it a destination locale in Wine Country, but if you happen to be in the area, overall it makes for a pleasant tasting experience.

Many of the world’s great cities have landmarks that are central to their images.  Tourists and locals alike gather at the Eifel Tower, Big Ben, the Coliseum and Time Square.  Other cities without such internationally known monuments offer something different; they’re great hanging out cities.  San Diego is one; so are Milan, Amsterdam and Madrid.  Let us introduce you to yet another, Copenhagen, and in particular a wine taster’s destination bar known by its address, ved Stranden 10.

First about the city.  The most famous locale in Copenhagen is Nyhavn, which is a long harbor, mostly for fishing and tourism boats.  All the buildings along the harbor are brightly colored and alongside is a long row of cafes under welcoming umbrellas.  Of course it’s full of tourists, but you find Danes there as well, especially at night. As we said, it’s a great place to hang out.  But so are the sidewalk restaurants on Gothersgade; the big square in the fashionable shopping district, in the middle of Højbro Plads (or Place); and the Street Food center across the main harbor.

Nyhavn, Copenhagen’s “new harbor”, only 300 years old

Which brings us to ved Stranden 10 (http://www.vedstranden10.dk/). It’s located alongside a canal  and from the outside, it’s an unassuming building on a quiet little street.  In warm weather, they have tables outside along the canal.  Ved Stranden 10 is a wine store and also a wine bar.  Inside, there’s a very small bar up front with pourers, waiters and customers scurrying about like mad.  There are a few tables and stools along one wall, but for the most part all you can do in the bar is stand and order.  There are several more rooms that are far more like someone’s rather chic Danish Modern living room than a wine bar.

So far, so nice.  What differentiates ved Stranden 10 from all other wine bars we’ve ever been to, is that most of the waiters are sommeliers and that there is no wine list!  Instead, you negotiate with your waiter.  He or she will ask, “What do you feel like drinking?”.  Maybe one wants a light white, somewhat austere, not very fruit forward and the other a robust red, chewy and full of fruit.  (That would be Lucie and Steve, respectively.)  The waiter will get a few glasses and bottles and pour little tastes.  “Does this work for you?”  If so, your glass will be filled.  If not, he or she will go get something else.  No one goes away disappointed.

Inside ved Stranden 10

You can’t say, “I’ll have a Pinot Noir” or a Bordeaux or a Sauvignon Blanc. They don’t work that way. You tell them you like Bordeaux but they don’t carry Bordeaux.  They will bring you a taste of what they think is similar to Bordeaux.   They have a lot of wines from obscure places, like Serbia or Turkey or some valley in Italy you’ve never heard of.  So the light white wine came from Sardinia and the big red was a Blaufrankisch from Austria.  We might have ordered those ourselves, but if there were something on a list that was more familiar, we never would have gotten to these wines.  The result is that we both got to drink some wines we weren’t familiar with, that met our taste preferences at that moment.

A word about the glasses.  If you choose to sit outside, they will use very nice glassware, but nothing you’d notice one way or the other.  But inside, they use some of the most delicate stemware we’ve ever drunk from.  The glasses are very light and the stems are so thin you feel like you’re going to snap them with your fingers.  (We didn’t.)  They don’t use them outside because the slightest breeze would knock them over.

Fair warning: you’ll have such a good time at ved Stranden 10 that when it’s time to sum up and pay, because you have no idea what the cost was of that glass of wine that you just ordered (remember, no wine list),  you’ll find that you had so many wines that the bill is bigger than you thought it would be.  You’ll probably conclude that it was money well spent, like we did.

This is one in a continuing series, irregular though it may be, about favorite wine bars where you can do wine tasting.  It wasn’t meant to be a series, but since we’ve already introduced our readers to the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto and L’Ecluse in Paris, then three such articles seals the deal. 

So let us introduce you to Reynier in the City of London, that is the sector of London known as The City, where all the financiers are.  Actually, many of them have moved on to Canary Wharf…Oh, forget about it.  This is the old, historic part of London, where London Bridge is, where the streets are tiny and curvy and have names like Threadneedle and Poultry and Pudding to memorialize the trades that were once practiced there.  And there are still many bankers and brokers and insurance chaps and they like to drink with their lunch.  Which brings us to Reynier.

Now what’s funny is that the name of the place is actually the Wine Library (www.winelibrary.co.uk), which isn’t such a bad name, but I’ve only ever known it as Reynier (pronounced RAIN-yay) and no one I know who goes there calls it anything else.  But other than the mystery of the name and the little streets, why should you go there?  Well, “Wine Library” should give you a clue.  It’s a fine wine shop with a  great selection, running heavily to Bordeaux and Burgundy.  “Wait” you must be thinking, “this was supposed to be about a wine bar, not a wine shop.”  And so it is, but with a difference.

Reynier wine Library.  Photo courtesy of Yap.

As you can see from the photo, there are a lot of wine bottles and we can assure you that they are all for sale.  And you can see that there are tables.  That’s because you can buy a bottle, pay a small corkage fee and drink the contents on the premises.  Of course we can hear you objecting that you’d never sit down and drink a bottle by yourself.  Indeed not! So go to Reynier with a friend or two.  Which is exactly what all those bankers and brokers and insurance chaps do at lunch time.

It’s not French cooking, or English or Italian because there’s no cooking at all.  What there is is a magnificent spread of pates and hams and terrines and cheeses.  And grainy mustard and crispy baguettes.  And of course the wine you just bought.  No king ever had a finer repast.

Photo courtesy of Reynier Wine Library.

I distantly remember seeing the room in the picture with the chairs and tables, but if you want to move with the in crowd you go to the cellar         (which is where the buffet is) and sit with the fellows in the skinny suits with wide chalk stripes and loud ties (i.e., the finance set) where you will rest your backside on a low stool and eat off the top of an upturned barrel.  If you’re with a few other people, you’ll have to shoulder your way to a seat.  It’s worth it because when you’re with a group you’ll run out of the first bottle rather quickly and someone will have to get up and buy another, and maybe another after that.  And they say that they return to work after lunch?!?

Great wine, great food, history and the three new friends you’re bound to make at lunch.  What could be better?  Come and get it while the dollar is hot and the pound is not.

There are other wines to drink in California’s Amador County, but the main reason to go wine tasting in this part of Wine Country is to try the Zinfandels they’re famous for.  There are wineries all over the county, but the greatest concentration of them is in and around the town of Plymouth, mostly on or just off Shenandoah Road, also known as the Shenandoah Valley, about 50 miles east of Sacramento.

There is also a fair number of wineries about a half hour north of Plymouth in another town called Placerville.  We haven’t visited there yet so offer no opinions in this article.  If you have  several days, by all means try locations other than Plymouth, but we recommend against doing a lot of tasting in one place and then driving for some time to another. You mostly drive on small roads.  Keep it easy and keep it safe.

While many of the wineries have built glass and steel tasting rooms, none of them come close to palatial.  Many wineries, including some of the more popular ones, are located in wooden buildings.  They are hardly sheds, but they do project a rustic ambiance that, overall, describes Amador County.  There are a lot of ranches around the county.  You definitely know you’re in the country when you visit there.

Photo courtesy of Helwig Winery

One  feature of Amador county wineries is that many of them have restaurants.  Among them are Villa Toscana and Renwood.  You’d better look for them if you want something to eat because once you’re down the road in the Shenandoah Road it’s a bit of a drive back into town, and event then there aren’t many places to eat.

Photo courtesy of Renwood Winery

With the restaurants in the wineries, the wine tasting experience is different. You feel more like being in a bar and grill than in a tasting room.  At one place we saw people sitting on bar stools ordering plates of cheese and charcuterie, in another one just besides the tasting room was the restaurant.  Lucie felt that it was more commercial and that people living around the area go there to party. They seem to consider the wineries like their local bars which takes something away from wine tasting experience.

You’re not quite in the mountains in Amador County but you certainly are in the foothills of the Sierras.  Thus there are quite a few wonderful views to be had on a pretty day.  We’ve also had the experience of being there on a rainy, foggy day and you do feel a bit closed in.

Among the wineries to consider when you drive out to Amador County (and you will drive as there are no commercial airports closer than Sacramento, forty miles away) are Renwood, Helwig and Turley.  Renwood is the biggest, most commercial winery in the region and its Zinfandels are widely available.  Helwig has a rather large tasting room, made of wood and offers excellent views.  Turley is interesting because it’s the northern outlet of the same label in Paso Robles.  We are familiar with the Central Coast winery and often buy their wines but we found virtually an entirely different selection in Amador County.

Turley winery in Amador County

There’s always a reason to go for a tasting trip anywhere in Wine Country.  There are some first-rate wines to be experienced in Amador County and if you are a Zinfandel fan you’ll find much that will interest you and a few wines that you will find exciting.  Wine tasting in Amador County is certainly is more than “a pleasant day in the countryside” destination.