As with all drives, the miles seem to pass exceptionally fast when they are spent with good company. We made the drive up quickly and safely so that we go to Amador County shortly after midnight. While we made it to our friend’s town easily enough, finding her house was another story. She lived on a poorly paved road in the middle of nowhere. We weren’t sure our directions were correct, and the owner of the Lexus we were driving cringed each time we hit a pothole, but we finally found our home for the weekend, a nice little house in the middle of farm land. After the long work day and longer drive, it was bed time.
Saturday morning came too quickly, but I was able to shake off my tiredness because it was time for wine tasting. Amador County has 40+ wineries and we were scheduled to go to some of the best of them. Our day started with breakfast at a local bakery full of locally made artisan treats. This was a great way to start the day. Not only did we get a delicious breakfast, we got a taste of what this place was all about. The bakery had delicious treats made with honest ingredients. The wineries that we visited that day would follow the same model.
Our first stop on the wine trail was Runquist wine. The owner and wine maker, Jeff Runquist is pretty well known for making quality wine so I was surprised to discover that his tasting room was in a seemingly unglamorous location in Amador County. As soon as we started our tasting, I quickly realized that location didn’t matter to Runquist. It was all about making the best wine possible from the best grapes he could find. He had Syrah’s made from grapes from Paso, Cabs made from Napa grapes, and Italian varietals made from Amador grapes. Runquist appreciated terroir but didn’t give us a great example of the terroir of Amador, just highlights of the terroir from some of California’s premier wine growing regions. It was a good tasting, but I was ready to get on to see what Amador County was all about.
The next couple of places kind of blend together. Nothing about them stood out. Each of them made one or two decent wines but nothing worth writing about. Just before lunch time, it was finally time to visit our friend’s place of business, Vino Noceto. Since hearing that she worked there, I’d done a bit of research on Vino Noceto and found out that they are one of California’s premier makers of Italian styled Sangiovese based wines. Not only did they make Sangiovese, they made it in the traditional Italian style and even used Sangiovese Grosso grapes for some of their better labels. Sangiovese Grosso is the grape that makes the fabulous Brunello di Montalcino wine, one of Italy’s best wines. Furthermore, Vino Noceto has vines cloned from a few of Montalcino’s most legendary wineries, including Biondi Santi, the father label of Brunello.
Needless to say, I was excited to try their wine. Biondi Santi Brunellos are among the prizes of my collection and among the best wines I’ve ever had so I was eager to see what a small Nor Cal winery could do with their grapes. The tasting started off with their basic reds- a Sangiovese and a house red wine. They were both decent and I could taste the Italian influence, but they didn’t meet the great expectations I’d had for each wine I was going to try there.
Then it was on to the big boys. The Sangiovese Riserva was the wine that opened my eyes during the tasting. Their Riserva had a quality that I’d only ever had in Italian Chianti Classico wines. I was impressed that California could imitate the style so well because having been in the heart of Chianti, it seemed like this winery was on an entirely different planet. Anyway, their Sangiovese Riserva was great and it got me excited for the next two wines to come. The next wine we tried was the Hillside Sangiovese. This wine was made from grapes cloned from one of the great wineries in Montalcino, and while I’ve never had the original product, I think that the Amador reproduction of their wine has to be a pretty accurate representation of the original. If it’s not and if the original is much better, I need to get my hands on the original asap. The tasting concluded with the wine that I was looking forward to- the Marmellata Sangiovese- Amador’s representation of the Biondi Santi vine.
Biondi Santi has made the top two wines that I’ve ever tried. A bottle of Biondi Santi 1997 Brunello is the best wine I’ve ever had. The 2001 Brunello is a close second. I have a feeling that the 2004 Brunello will challenge those two wines for the best I’ve ever had once I decide to open it. Needless to say, the expectations were sky high. The Maremellata Sangiovese didn’t immediately wow me as a great wine, but it did remind me of Brunello and showed great promise to become something special. It was so complex and intensely flavorful that it was unmistakably related to a Brunello. With all of the Californian representations of Sangiovese that I’d tried previously, I didn’t think it possible that I’d find some accurate representation of Brunello born anywhere but Montalcino. This wine made me think otherwise. And, at just $28 per bottle, this wine represents a tremendous value when it comes to wines made from the Sangiovese Grosso strain of Sangiovese grapes. I bought several bottles of this wine and am holding them, impatiently waiting for time to pass to see if they can age with the grace that their Italian cousins do. I’m optimistic, especially since I’ve opened and properly aerated a bottle since the trip. If you’re a fan of Brunello di Montalcino, try this wine.
We ended up having lunch at the winery on the picnic tables just outside the tasting room. Eating next to the grape vines and playing bocce ball was a great experience and gave all of us the great feeling of being in the middle of wine country. The afternoon took us to a few more wineries, none of which rivaled what we tried at Vino Noceto. The day ended with an Italian dinner shared among friends and a visit to a local bar to hear country music. I couldn’t ask for much more from a Saturday.
Saturday is always followed by Sunday and with Sunday came time to say goodbye. We had breakfast at our new favorite local hangout, the bakery from Saturday morning. After that, it was back into the car and onto the 5 freeway to head home. My goal for the year was to taste honest examples of terroir and to try to understand what makes great wine. Amador County didn’t give me any real clear answers but it did raise more questions. What really makes great wine? I tried great wines grown from vines cloned from Italian legends. I tried wines from a winemaker that selected grapes that were great examples of terroir, but didn’t grow the grapes himself. This trip just reaffirmed my thought that it is nice to understand terroir, but it is better to try new wines and to put the dots together yourself to see which aspects of terroir really matter to you, the one drinking the wine. Each trip into wine country teaches me something, and armed with this new approach, I began the countdown to my next trip into wine country.
sounds like an amazing trip...where to next?
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