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More than just a wee taste of Amador County

This entry could have been an afterthought to yesterday's post about the Sierra Century, but really, I enjoyed our four hours of wine tasting much more than I enjoyed nearly eight hours of biking in 90-degree heat. Who wouldn't?

Amador County, California is home to a few dozen small wineries, with zinfandel being the most popular grape. We had planned to stop by one, maybe two wineries on our way out of town. After visiting two wineries, we were having such a blast, we figured, why stop now?

Wilderotter is a fairly new shop (with a lovely new tasting room) that had a surprising, and surprisingly tasty sauvignon blanc. Our car was the only car in the lot -- as a general rule, we skipped the big or "crowded" places (meaning more than three cars in the lot). We bought four bottles of wine and went up the road a bit to Kelson Creek.

The Hawaiian-shirted guys at Kelson Creek were trying hard to fill us up with wine. I picked this place off the wine map because they're known for their ports, but we really enjoyed the zinfandel they make from unirrigated, 106-year-old vines. They plied us with chocolate brownies to taste with the port, and also with a mixture of their tawny port and almond-flavored sparkling wine. All I could taste was the almond; it was a bit much. We walked out with five bottles (two vintage port, two zin, one... rose! Ahem, I mean syrah rouge blanc. It was a hot day, and the stuff was refreshing as all get out).

We stopped into Nine Gables because they grow some of the last mission grapes in California, and we were curious. Also, they're small. Very small. We tried all three mission wines they had: white (weird! and almost savory tasting), a very light claret (interesting), and a port (also weird). For such a small winery, they had a lot of wines to offer, maybe 15 different bottles open for tasting (we didn't try them all). Their 04 reserve barbera knocked us out. Three more bottles went into the car (mission claret, barbera, and a port).

After everyone else cleared out of the Nine Gables tasting room, we had a nice chat with the proprietor, who suggested we go a bit out of the way to Dobra Zemlja, where a "white-haired Croatian guy" made the best syrah around. So we trotted out there to find their absolutely charming wine cave/tasting room. The syrah didn't do much for us, but the late-harvest zinfandel, paired with chocolate cake left over from their wine club party the night before, was indulgent and delicious. Two bottles.

We made one last stop at a fairly new place called Nua Dair, which means "New Oak" in Scots gaelic. (Why do you think I picked it?) The tasting room doubled as the barrel-aging shed. I loved their sangiovese and Dave was quite fond of their Banais red blend. (Plus we got more chocolate cake.) Two bottles.

And then it was 5pm. We had visited five wineries and bought 16 bottles of wine, we were hungry, and we had to start the 2.5-hour trip home. Such a shame! I wish we had another day to wander. But now we have enough wine to keep us busy for a long, long time.

So if any of you want to come out here and go wine-tasting, just say the word. We'll totally skip Napa, where you have to pay for wine tastings and fight hordes of tourists. As long as you aren't looking for chardonnay, Amador County rules.

June 6, 2006 9:04 PM