A few friends and I drove from the Bay Area to the Sierra Foothills on the Saturday just after Thanksgiving to visit some wineries. Among those on the outing were Grape-Nutz vets Al Osterheld, Eric Lundblad, and Alan Garretson, as well as friends Jane, Danny, Laura, and Rosemary. It’s a long day trip to the Sierra Foothills, and this time we decided not to rush things too much and only stop at a few spots. As it turned out, we only made three winery visits, all of which were in southern El Dorado County. They included one place none of us had visited before – Miraflores – along with two old favorites, Holly’s Hill and Cedarville.

Miraflores Winery

We’d first heard about Miraflores Winery a year earlier, when it was recommended to us by Jonathan Lachs and Susan Marks of Cedarville Vineyard. We didn’t have time to visit there on that day, so this time we decided Miraflores would be our first stop. As several of us were carpooling separately, we all met each other at the winery, in the Pleasant Valley area of El Dorado County, a few miles south of Placerville. Surprisingly, no one had any problem finding the winery, and even more amazingly, we were all on time!

We proceeded through a pair of large entry doors into the airy tasting room, housed in a handsome new stucco building. Julie and Ross of the tasting room staff were friendly and knowledgeable hosts, and told us about the winery as they poured us tastes of over a dozen current releases along with two barrel samples.

The hilly 250-acre property was purchased in 1995 by Victor and Cheryl Alvarez, after they had searched for vineyard land in Arizona, where Victor is a practicing pathologist. Situated mostly on decomposed granite and volcanic soils at elevations ranging from 2,600 to 2,900 feet, 39½ acres of the property were planted in 2000-01. A total of 62 acres have deer fencing, so there is room for more vines in the future. Syrah is the largest planting with 18 acres, and the vineyard also has Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Viognier, Muscat Canelli, Cabernet Sauvignon, Mourvèdre, Tempranillo, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot.

As the vineyard matures, Miraflores is increasingly using estate fruit for its wines, but they still purchase fruit from other sources as well. One of these sources is the well-known Herbert Vineyard, which was bought a few years ago by winemaker Marco Capelli. Planted in the early ‘70s, Sierra Vista Winery among others has sourced some fine Zinfandel fruit from this vineyard over the years.

The first vintage of Miraflores wine was 2003, and as noted above, Marco Capelli is the winemaker. If his names sounds familiar, it’s undoubtedly because he was the long-time winemaker for Swanson Vineyards in Napa, where he worked for a time with the legendary André Tchelistcheff. Marco now consults for a number of wineries in the Sierra Foothills. The Miraflores winery and tasting room opened in early 2007, and the facility is large enough to accommodate custom crush clients as well. The winery produced about 7,200 cases in 2008, and they plan to top out their annual production at about 10,000 cases. A variety of winemaking techniques are employed on different wines – the “Méthode Ancienne” Syrah, for example, is foot-stomped and fermented with whole clusters and with native yeast. Wines are aged in both French and American oak.

The winery considers Zinfandel and Syrah to be their specialties. As with most Sierra Foothills wineries, prices are very reasonable, and range from about $15 to $30. The wines are not shy, tending toward the bold and intense end of the spectrum, yet they maintain good balance. The dessert wines are among the best I’ve tasted in the Sierra Foothills. The vineyard and winery are still young – the wines are a bit inconsistent, but generally very good, and clearly show the promise in store for future vintages. Miraflores looks like one of the group of El Dorado wineries that is starting to raise the quality level of the area in general.

Holly’s Hill Vineyards

After finishing our extensive tasting at Miraflores, we hopped in our cars and made the short drive to Holly’s Hill Vineyards. Most of our group had visited here before, and it’s become a regular stop. As is often the case, Josh Bendick welcomed us from behind the tasting bar. Before long, his wife Carrie – winemaker and daughter of owners Holly and Tom Cooper – came out from the office to say hello too. It’s always fun to see one or more of the Bendicks’ young daughters and their cats in the tasting room as well.

Holly’s Hill is one of the Sierra Foothills’ Rhône specialists. The first of their two beautiful hillside estate vineyards was first planted in 1998 with the second one following two years later. At over 2,600-foot elevation, this is another of the high-altitude vineyards of El Dorado County. Their first vineyard was originally planted entirely to Syrah, but some of that has been grafted over to other varieties since then. Viognier, Grenache Blanc, Roussanne, Grenache, Mourvèdre, Syrah, Counoise, and Petite Sirah are all currently grown on the property. The winery was launched in 2001, and there are plans to expand the small facility soon.

All fruit is destemmed before fermentation, and older barrels as well as some larger casks are favored for aging, to reduce the added flavors and tannins of new oak. Only French oak is used, and most wines are aged sur lie, with whites remaining in barrel for about six months and most reds about eleven months, with Syrahs aging for up to two years.

Holly’s Hill dependably has one of the most solid lineups of wine in the Sierra Foothills. They don’t go for the big “in-your-face” style often found in the area, instead crafting more food-friendly wines with good acidity and nuanced flavors. I usually prefer their whites over the reds, though they weren’t pouring many whites the day we stopped in. Year after year, the “Patriarche Blanc” is one of the finest white Rhône-style wines produced in the Sierra Foothills (and I think it’s often one of the better ones in all of California), and the ’07 that we tasted did not disappoint. There are usually some excellent reds too, and the “Patriarche” red blend and Wylie-Fenaughty Syrah were standouts on this visit.

Following our tasting, we had a relaxing lunch at one of the picnic tables just outside the Holly’s Hill tasting room – a perfect way to deal with too many Thanksgiving leftovers! Although hazy skies obscured the usually-spectacular view across the Central Valley to Mount Diablo, the bright sunshine and unseasonably warm weather were most enjoyable.

Cedarville Vineyard

After our delicious picnic lunch, we headed south along scenic Mt. Aukum Road, descending steeply and then climbing again as we crossed both the north and middle forks of the Cosumnes River – the only remaining major undammed river on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. We finally turned east at Fairplay Road and continued the short distance to Cedarville Vineyard. Parking alongside the small winery building, the nearby vines displayed stunning golden leaves under the fall sunlight.

After admiring the vineyard for a few minutes, we walked inside for our appointment (amazingly, on time again!), where Jonathan Lachs and Susan Marks greeted us. Although I’d visited Cedarville many times over the years, I’d never thought to ask where the name came from. Jonathan and Susan explained that Cedarville was the name of an old mining town that was once located about a mile from the property – a nice tribute to an earlier group of Sierra Foothill pioneers.

Cedarville focuses on Rhône varieties, along with Zin and Cabernet. Jonathan and Susan met while studying at UC Davis, and they purchased and planted the property in the mid-1990s. Their first vintage was 1998, and they moved into their house overlooking the vineyard the following year. Their 15-acre vineyard, on decomposed granite soil, is farmed sustainably and dry-farmed as much as possible. They grow Viognier, Grenache, Mourvèdre, Syrah, Zinfandel, and Cabernet Sauvignon. All of Cedarville’s wines are made from estate-grown fruit except for the Petite Sirah, grown nearby at Naylor Vineyard.

The winery itself is larger than it appears from the outside, since barrel storage is inside two caves, built with precast concrete arches into the hillside behind the building. This helps to keep the space naturally cool during the hot summer months. Since the annual production is only about 2,500 cases, the winery is compact and well-designed.

I asked about the 2008 growing season, since it was a difficult one in many parts of California, and Jonathan and Susan told us that they lost about 30% of their fruit to the late-spring frosts. Fortunately, the Sierra Foothills were not impacted too much by the smoke from summer forest fires that caused problems in some other growing areas. They noted that the ’08 harvest was completed in only 3½ weeks, finishing at the end of September – a shorter harvest than usual.

We proceeded to taste through Cedarville’s current releases as well as a few older wines. As usual, the wines are defined by ripe yet elegant fruit, framed with a deft touch of oak. Jonathan noted that they are using more French and less American oak than in past, and less new oak. Favorite coopers include François Frères, Seguin Moreau, and Meyrieux.

Cedarville continues to produce wines that are among the highest quality in the Sierra Foothills. I thought the current Grenache and the Cabernet releases have taken the most noticeable steps forward from previous vintages. Cedarville’s Grenache has always been tasty, but the ’06 has a depth and complexity that the earlier ones only hinted at. And the Cab seems to get better every year – graceful and balanced, and without the searing tannins of many Cabs made from mountain-grown fruit. As a bonus, the price of these wines (as with many wines from the Sierra Foothills) remains a bargain for the quality compared with most California wines.

Following our tasting at Cedarville, we relaxed for awhile under the winery’s crushpad overhang, enjoying the pleasant weather. Eventually, we said goodbye and continued south through Amador County wine country to the small town of Plymouth. There we had a wonderful dinner at Taste Restaurant – yet another one of Jonathan and Susan’s recommendations. This is a top-notch restaurant, certainly one of the finest in the Sierra Foothills wine county. The food was outstanding (don’t miss the “mushroom cigars” if you go there), and we popped the corks on many tasty wines that evening too.

We had wisely opted for an early dinner reservation, since it was a long drive back home to the Bay Area. It was a pleasure to visit the El Dorado wine country again, and trying a new winery that’s as promising as Miraflores was a nice bonus. The wines from this area continue to climb in quality, and wineries such as Miraflores, Holly’s Hill, and Cedarville help lead the way. As always, thanks to everyone that we visited for being so generous with their time and their wine!