Sierra Foothills

Sierra Foothills

Hollys Hill Vineyards

El Dorado's wine area is known for having great Zinfandels, Mourvedres and other reds, but at Holly's Hill Winery there's something there for the white wine lover. Holly's Hill Vineyards is a wonderful family owned and operated winery creating Rhone style wines. Their white wines are solid, dry and not overpowering with strong oakey overtones. You can easily eat food with them - especially the Roussanne and Viognier.

Toogood Estate Wine Caves

Hidden from view off a narrow two-lane road in the heart of Fair Play, this winery takes advantage of the rocky outcroppings and protected valleys indigenous to the area. Toogood Estate Winery is unique in the Sierra Foothills because it has wine caves. There were many wines to choose from and the staff made the visit fun. They mixed in educating us about the wines and their process with jokes and kept things fun.

Cantiga Wine Works

Cantiga Wineworks! A small, family-operated winery based in the Sierra Foothills of California. Cantiga Wine Works is committed to recapturing the art of making wine that benefits from long periods of cellaring, and to crafting a food-friendly style, thus reclaiming wine’s rightful place on the dinner table.

Gekkeikan Sake

Japan's tradition of sake making began more than 2,000 years ago shortly after rice cultivation was introduced from China. Though the first few centuries yielded a beverage quite unlike that of today, years of experience perfected brewing techniques and increased sake's overall appeal and popularity. In 1637, Gekkeikan's founder, Jiemon Okura established his sake brewery in the town of Fushimi, a location well-known for its high quality of water. Access to the ideal ingredients combined with a convenient location enabled Okura and his successors' business to thrive in the years that followed. To meet this increase in demand, Gekkeikan Sake (USA) , Inc. was established in Folsom, California in 1989. Today, Gekkeikan's passion for pleasing the sake connoisseur remains unchanged.

Fenton Herriott Vineyards

Fenton Herriott Vineyards is located in the Sierra Nevada foothills at the gateway to Apple Hill, and is situated on what was once the old Pony Express Route and resides just 1/2 mile from the Smith Flat house. This region has a vibrant prospecting history, and is just a short distance from the gold mining towns of Coloma and Sutter's Mill. The Sierra Nevada foothills has been used for farming for well over 100 years. The Mediterranean climate of this area combining warm summer nights and hot summer days with free-draining volcanic soils is especially ideal for grape growing and allows us to produce the quality fruit needed for our complex, delicately-balanced and full-bodied wines. As a small, family owned winery, Fenton Herriott is intimately involved in every part of the vintner process - vineyard and vine maintenance, grape crush, fermentation, barrel ageing, bottling, and packaging.

Di Vittorio Winery

A boutique winery that is located in the Sierra Foothills that uses tradititonal proceww that the diVittorio family has used since their immigrated to America in 1904. A small on-site still is used to produce the distillate that is the brandy composing the port wines and soon to come California Calvados. The wines and brandy are aged in oak barrels in the stable environment of a cave for at least 2 years before bottling.

Szabo Vineyards

A cozy tasting room and they were even dog friendly! Wine was delicious and owners were really friendly and great to talk to. The tasting was $6 - not bad at all when you compare them to Napa, but a little different when you compare them to all the wineries in Grass Valley who don't charge for tastings. This is more of a place you spend the evening with a good glass of wine rather than a "learn about each type of wine in detail" because there were lots of people in the tasting room and they didn't have a lot of time to explain every wine to us. However, on a recent weekend visit, a Sunday it was far more relaxed.

Woffard Acres Vineyard

This was homiest and friendliest of the 3 wineries we visited. The view off the hill cannot be beat. It is gorgeous. It was neat to see the vines with fruit hanging off of them. Some of it had been picked and was waiting for pick-up, which happened quite often as the owner whizzed by on his ATV. We could see people in the back taking the grapes he had just delivered and running them through a press.

Lucchesi Vineyards & Winery

he Lucchesi family origins lie in Provincia Di Lucca, Toscana, and we are the direct descendents from the civilizations of the Etruscans, the native culture of northwestern/central Italy, and first civilization of Italy and the Romans.I remember their Barbera from last fall being excellent, but when I went in last they only offered the "general, grow everywhere" wines, such as Merlot, Carbernet and Syrah. In my opinion the more exotic grapes do better in Nevada County and have a more unique taste.

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