Sierra Foothills Wine Visits – November 2018
I’ve posted a portion of a report on a late November visit with a few friends to four Sierra Foothills wineries and tasting rooms. A full report on all of the visits is on the Grape-Nutz.com website:
Sierra Foothills Visits – November 2018
The End of Nowhere
Andis Wines
Element 79 Vineyards
Cedarville Vineyard
Cedarville Vineyard
The Sierra Foothills in late autumn – it’s become an annual wine trip with friends, and this year was no exception. It was a one-day trip once again this year – a long day coming from the Bay Area but still manageable. A two-day wine tour of the Foothills does make things a good deal easier, and I may need to do that next time!
Our trip this year was on the Saturday following Thanksgiving. The group of friends that came along with me was nearly the same as last year. My friends Jane and Chris from Sacramento joined me, as did Jane’s cousin Mike and his wife Carol, who recently moved to Sacramento. This year my friend Alan was able to come along as well. On last year’s trip, we stuck entirely with old favorites, but this time three of the four producers we visited were new to me.
The End of Nowhere
Our first wine visit was to a new producer, The End of Nowhere. The winery tasting room in Amador City opened just a few weeks before our visit there with owner / winemaker Chris Walsh. I’d only learned of The End of Nowhere quite recently, when I saw a Facebook post on the new tasting room by Hank Beckmeyer of La Clarine Farm. I checked out the winery website and was able to get in touch with Chris to arrange for our group to stop by his tasting room before the regular opening time. Alan and I arrived first, stepping inside from the broad covered porch of the historic Amador Hotel, and Chris greeted us.
The tasting room is small but bright and welcoming. Its centerpiece is the cleverly-designed tasting counter, which incorporates the front of a 1949 Ford truck. Chris told us that he saw it on eBay, bought it, and had it shipped to him in New York City, where he was living at the time. The countertop is a thick piece of walnut wood from his family’s property in Amador County. While we were waiting for the rest of our group to arrive, we had a few minutes to talk with Chris about his path to opening The End of Nowhere – a story about him returning to his roots.
Chris told us that the winery name is descriptive of the location of his new vineyard and small winemaking facility, in a remote spot at the end of a dirt road near the town of Pioneer, about 15 miles to the east of Amador City. Chris grew up there, in a house that belonged to his grandparents. He didn’t originally have any particular interest in wine, and he moved to New York City to become an architectural lighting designer. When the economy crashed in 2008, he found himself out of work and took a job at a local wine bar. This started his interest in wine, and he eventually worked his way up to become a certified sommelier. But he realized that what he really wanted to do was to make his own wine and he moved back to his family’s property in 2014 and began planting a vineyard there the following year. He also looked to gain practical experience in both the vineyard and winery, and he’s worked at Domaine de la Terre Rouge in Amador County and at Donkey and Goat in Berkeley, and helped at Shake Ridge Ranch and at Rorick Heritage Vineyard – both highly-regarded Sierra Foothills vineyard sites.
Chris’ Little John Lane Vineyard – named after the road where the property in Pioneer is located – is at about 3,300-foot elevation, probably one of the highest vineyards in Amador County. Chris told us that the soil there is volcanic and quite rocky. There are currently about four acres of grapevines planted on the 20-acre property, where there are also walnut, apple, and pear trees. Chris had thought about planting some Italian grape varieties there but felt that the climate was too cold both early and late in the growing season for many of them to do well there (snow is not uncommon). He’s planted mainly Rhône varieties, as these have thrived in many Foothills locations and produced some excellent wines. There are 16 grape varieties currently planted at the vineyard: Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre, Counoise, Cinsault, Viognier, Grenache Blanc, Roussanne, Picpoul, Picardan, Clairette Blanche, Vermentino, Grenache Gris, Petite Manseng, Gros Manseng, and Cabernet Franc. Some of the vines are own-rooted while others are planted on rootstock, and they’re head-trained. As the vines are still very young, Chris is irrigating them, but he’s hoping that he’ll be able to dry-farm them once they’re established. He farms using organic methods – he does not till the vineyard soil and has not needed to spray the vines, and he’s let native grasses and flowers grow among the vine rows. Chris got a little fruit from his first vines this year but he expects the first real commercial crop will be in 2020.
The initial wines from The End of Nowhere are all from purchased fruit, mainly from Amador County vineyards. As his own vines mature, Chris expects to center his production on wines made from his Little John Lane Vineyard. He would like to continue buying fruit from other growers as well, so he can work with grape varieties he doesn’t have in his own vineyard. Chris made his first vintage (2016) at the Forlorn Hope facility near Murphys in Calaveras County but he’s been making the wines at his place in Pioneer the past two years. With so many grape varieties at his new vineyard, it was not surprising to hear that he’s planning to make mostly blends rather than single-varietal wines. Chris’ winemaking follows a minimal-intervention / natural wine path, with native yeast fermentation, no additions other than SO2, and no fining or filtering. This year’s production is about 1,200 cases.
Although Chris sees blends for his wines in the future, his first wines are all varietal, and mostly Zinfandel (and its close relative Primitivo). But he’s approaching Zin in way that’s different from most producers in the Sierra Foothills, or anywhere in California for that matter. There are both sparkling and still rosé bottlings, another made by carbonic maceration, plus a straightforward but lower-alcohol rendition. As the rest of our group had now joined us in the tasting room, Chris started us in with tasting the first of five wines from The End of Nowhere.
Chris Walsh
The fruit for the 2017 “Uncorked!” Sparkling Zinfandel Rosé came from Pritchard Vineyard near Plymouth. Many young sparklers are made by the Pétillant Naturel (Pét-Nat) method these days, but this one was not, and it’s somewhat unusual in that it was not disgorged. Light salmon-pink color, this was lightly bubbly and featured subtle red fruit and pear flavors, a yeasty note, and a vibrant finish, quite nice. The 2016 “#1 Crush” Zinfandel Rosé was sourced from Slo 2 20 Vineyard near Plymouth. This wine was made from about 50% direct whole-cluster pressed fruit and 50% from fruit that was foot-trod and left on the skins for 24 hours prior to pressing, then fermented in a large (1,136 gallon) French oak tank. The wine showed aromas of red fruit, citrus, and lemonpeel, with crisp acidity and a clean finish. Our third wine was the lone one from fruit outside of Amador County – the 2017 “Inconvenienced Millionaire” Pinot Gris came from Heringer Vineyard in Clarksburg. Very light color, with higher-toned stone fruit, savory undertones, and good acidity.
We moved on to two reds, each showing a different side of Zinfandel. The 2017 “Phantom Limb” Carbonic Maceration Zinfandel was sourced from dry-farmed, head-trained, own-rooted vines at Trapier Vineyard near Plymouth. Chris uses a different method from others I’ve seen making wines using carbonic maceration (fermenting in a sealed tank with CO2, keeping out oxygen during the fermentation process). Most vintners use dry ice or pump CO2 gas into their tanks, but Chris placed some fermenting “#1 Crush” at the bottom of the tank to create the CO2 to fill it. With upfront red berry fruit along with spice and floral undertones, this is a wine you might not pick out as a Zinfandel in a blind tasting, but it was distinctive and pleasant.
Our final wine was the 2016 “Stroke of Luck” Primitivo from Shake Ridge Ranch. While I won’t go into the stories behind all of the wine names, this one was due to a true stroke of luck with Chris unexpectedly being able to buy some of the highly sought-after fruit from Ann Kraemer’s vineyard near Sutter Creek. Primitivo is generally considered to be a clone of Zinfandel, though most growers and vintners who work with both do find distinct differences – Chris noted that Primitivo tends to ripen earlier and produces more pepper notes in the wines. “Stroke of Luck” was fermented entirely with whole clusters and was aged in neutral French oak. This was more “Zin-like” than the previous wine, but it’s not what most people will think of as a typical Amador Zinfandel either – this one was lighter and brighter than most from the region. Displaying savory raspberry fruit, spice, and earth, it was medium-bodied with lively acidity on the palate and the finish – a good wine to wrap up our tasting.
It’s always fun to visit a vintner who is just starting out their label, so this was a great time to talk with Chris at his tasting room and to check out his The End of Nowhere wines. He had some interesting stories to share with us about his time living and working in New York City as well as about his vineyard and his winemaking practices. Chris is one of the very few vintners in this part of the Sierra Foothills who is currently producing natural wines, and his initial efforts are very promising. His wines show distinctive takes on Zinfandel that are different from those of most Amador County producers, and it’s of note that all but one of the wines that we tasted with Chris are under 12% alcohol. Prices of all the wines are very reasonable, ranging from $20-$30. My favorite was the 2016 “Stroke of Luck”, followed closely by the 2017 “Uncorked!” and 2017 “Phantom Limb”.
It sounds like Chris is planning to continue with a similar direction in his upcoming wines, aiming to show some non-mainstream sides of various grape varieties. It will be interesting to visit him again in a few years, once wines from his own vineyard are available. But even now his wines stand out as something different than others from the region, so don’t miss stopping at Chris’ tasting room in Amador City to try his distinctive The End of Nowhere wines.
Andis Wines
The next stop of our Sierra Foothills wine tour was not too far away, a few miles north in the heart of Amador County’s Shenandoah Valley wine region. I’d passed the striking modern building of Andis Wines a few times in the past, and between my curiosity about the building and some good things I’d heard about the wines, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to stop in. I had contacted Andis beforehand, and Jenae Plasse, their chief operating officer, got me in touch with their national sales manager / brand ambassador Lorenzo Muslia, who was available to give our group a tasting and brief tour. It was still raining lightly when we parked outside the Andis facility and headed into the tasting room, a large airy space with lots of windows. We were the first visitors of the day, and Lorenzo was there to welcome us in.
The Andis name comes from a combination of the first names of husband-and-wife owners Andrew Friedlander and Janis Akuna. Andrew founded a commercial real estate development firm in Hawaii, and Janis, who grew up in Hawaii, is a financial planner, and has also attended wine courses at UC Davis. Andrew had lived for a time in Napa and had thought about starting a winery for many years. When he sold his real estate firm in 2007 (though he remains involved in the business), he and Janis talked about making that winery vision a reality. They traveled back to Napa Valley and found it to be a very different place than what he remembered about it from the 1980s, and they decided to look at other regions for starting a winery. Their first visit to the Amador wine region convinced them that it was the place they wanted to be. The idea for Andis began to take shape in 2008, and Andrew and Janis purchased the property along Shenandoah Road in 2009. The couple now split their time between living in Amador County and in Hawaii.
Lorenzo grew up in Tuscany and studied civil engineering in Milan, but it was food and wine that became his passion. He worked at some of the top restaurants in Florence before opening his own there in 2011. He and his wife and young daughter moved to California in 2014, and Lorenzo studied wine business management at Sonoma State University. He joined the Andis team in 2015 and he’s been able to expand the Andis brand since then – their wines are now distributed in over 30 states.
Lorenzo Muslia
In 2016 Andrew and Janis brought in Atelier Melka to head up the Andis winemaking team. Philippe Melka founded Atelier Melka in 1995, and he’s best-known for his work with a number of top-notch Napa Valley producers. His specialty of working with smaller-lot production of high-quality wines fits well with the Andis goals. Since Philippe and his team can’t always be at the winery, enologist Eric Hildreth manages the day-to-day winemaking operations, while both Janis and Lorenzo are among those involved in blending decisions. The initial Andis wines came from the 2007 vintage, and early efforts were produced at nearby Bray Vineyards. It wasn’t until the 2010 vintage that the Andis production really began to take off – not coincidentally, that was the year that their winery and tasting room building was constructed.
The Andis estate vineyard surrounds the winery and tasting room, at an elevation of about 1,600 feet. Lorenzo told us that the soil there is mainly decomposed granite, and we noticed that the soil color is a deep rusty red near the winery – not unusual in the region. There were already about 26 acres of Zinfandel vines on the property when Andrew and Janis purchased it in 2009. Planted in 1978, the older Zin vines are own-rooted and head-trained. Over the past decade, some of the Zin vines have been replaced with other grape varieties, including Sauvignon Blanc, Grenache, Syrah, Petite Sirah, Barbera, Malbec, and Schioppettino. Lorenzo said that they are planting some Counoise, grafting more Schioppettino over Malbec, and may add Cabernet Franc. Once younger vines at the site mature, the goal is to dry-farm them – the original Zinfandel vines have been dry-farmed for years. Farming uses sustainable practices, and winery waste such as stems and pomace goes into compost for the vineyard. We saw several owl boxes among the vines, something seen at more and more places to help control vineyard pests. There are about 20 acres currently planted at the estate vineyard, and the Zin vines still make up the largest percentage of any of the varieties grown there. Terri Harvey and Pat Rohan manage the estate vineyard, while Andis also works closely with growers at a number of other vineyards that provide fruit for the winery, mostly in Amador and El Dorado counties.
The winery building is about 22,000 square feet in size, and Andrew and Janis worked with Sage Architecture in Sacramento to develop the design. Among the design goals were to create a state-of-the-art winemaking facility, to make it a “green” building (it exceeds State of California energy standards by over 15%), and to make it a visually striking building that would stand out among others in Amador County. Built with insulated steel panels, the exterior can appear somewhat stark from a distance – I’ve heard that the appearance was not initially welcomed by all of the neighbors – but a closer look reveals more detail, including large vertical screens made of old barrel staves that help to keep the hot summer sun off of the building walls. The orientation of the building also helps with energy efficiency, and water from the winery is recycled and re-used. The winery was designed for a capacity of 20,000 cases per year.
Lorenzo started out our tasting with the 2016 Bill Dillian Vineyard Sémillon – made entirely in stainless steel, this has become one of the best-known Andis wines, both for its quality and because relatively few producers make a varietal Sémillon. The dry-farmed Sémillon vines at Bill Dillian Vineyard were planted in the 1970s for a producer who wanted to make a white Bordeaux-style blend, but when they stopped buying the fruit, the vines were going to be pulled out or grafted over to something else. Andis was able to step in and continue buying the Sémillon. The wine featured floral pear and apple fruit aromas along with touches of earth and orangepeel, and had a moderately rich yet lively mouthfeel and finish, quite pleasant.
We moved on to reds, beginning with the 2016 “Akuna Block” Estate Grenache. This block is considered the best Grenache block on the estate. The vines are farmed to keep the yield low (Grenache typically has a large crop), and the fruit is fermented in a temperature-controlled tank. The goal for this wine is to make a lighter red – many California wineries make a Pinot Noir to fill that slot, but since Pinot does not do well in this part of the Foothills, a lighter-style Grenache works well. This displayed bright fresh strawberry aromas plus tea leaf and earth notes, good acidity and moderate tannins, a nice Grenache in this style. Next was the 2016 “Barbera d’Amador” – Lorenzo noted that the “Barbera d’Amador” name is a play on Barbera d’Alba and Barbera d’Asti, both from the Piemonte region of Italy. The fruit is harvested in multiple picks, looking to dial in acidity first and then more intense flavor in the later pick – these are blended in the final wine. With tart cherry fruit along with earth and spice notes, this had vibrant acidity and a clean finish.
Lorenzo brought out a second wine glass for everyone so that we could taste the next two wines side-by-side. These were the 2014 Estate Zinfandel and 2014 Original Grandpère Vineyard Zinfandel. The Original Grandpère (OGP) Vineyard is located not far from Andis, and it’s the oldest documented Zinfandel vineyard in California, with plantings dating to 1869 – as far as is known, most of the vines there date to that original planting. The two wines were quite different. Like most old-vine Zin, the yield for the OGP vines was much less than for the estate vines, there was more new oak used for aging the Estate Zinfandel, and the alcohol for the Estate was noticeably higher than for the OGP Zin. The Estate bottling featured ripe boysenberry fruit, lots of spice with a touch of vanilla, medium-full body with moderate tannins on the finish. The OGP bottling had a lighter color, red and black fruits plus exotic spices and a hint of black pepper on the nose, along with medium weight with a lively finish. They were both good in their respective styles and I preferred the OGP bottling. We finished up tasting the current releases with the 2015 “Painted Fields,” a blend of Syrah, Petite Sirah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, and Mourvèdre. Tobacco, plum and darker fruit, and spice aromas, with a bigger structure than the Zins, and firm tannins on the finish.
After our tasting of the current Andis wines, Lorenzo took us on a short tour of the winery, proceeding from the tasting room to the adjacent barrel room. This space uses evaporative cooling (swamp coolers) rather than air conditioning, which saves energy and also keeps the barrel room more humid than the other building spaces – an advantage for barrel-aging. The winery buys around 20-25% new oak barrels each year, and also buys used barrels from trusted sources. Andis uses standard barriques for aging wines as well as some larger puncheons plus a few elongated “cigar” barrels. Next, we stepped outside to the covered crushpad, and from there to the fermentation room, directly across the crushpad from the barrel room. The fermentation room can be heated or cooled if needed, and individual stainless steel tanks can also be heated or cooled. There are a couple of concrete tanks in the fermentation room as well as the steel tanks.
We tasted some tank samples with Lorenzo in the fermentation room, our first one being the 2018 Sauvignon Blanc – from the aromatic Musqué clone, this was cold-fermented and aged entirely in stainless steel. Floral tropical fruit aromas plus herbal and citrus notes with nice acidity. Next was the 2018 Bill Dillian Vineyard Sémillon – with pear, earth, and pepper on the nose, it had a brighter texture at this stage than the current 2016 bottling. In addition to the varietal Sémillon bottling, Andis is planning to make a white Bordeaux-style Sauvignon Blanc-Sémillon blend from the 2018 wines.
We also tried a tank sample of the 2018 Estate Rosé, made from 50% each Barbera and Zinfandel (the Zin component is 50% old-vine Zinfandel and 50% Primitivo). This displayed bright cherry and spice aromas with a light and lively mouthfeel. The fruit for the Estate Rosé was harvested specifically for this wine and was all whole-cluster pressed – both the Rosé and Sauvignon Blanc will probably be bottled in mid-December, while the Sémillon will be bottled in April. We tasted one more tank sample, 2018 Estate Barbera – this was from a tank that was heated to aid in finishing the wine’s fermentation, which was not yet complete. Still a bit sweet and primary, it will take more time to see how this wine will develop.
We headed back into the barrel room to taste a few barrel samples, starting with the 2017 Original Grandpère Vineyard Zinfandel, tasted from a three-year old barrel. This was a bolder and more structured wine than the current 2014 release, but with similar raspberry and exotic spice aromas. Lorenzo said that this will be bottled early 2019. We followed this with a sample of 2017 Estate Schioppettino, which will be bottled in December. Lorenzo told us that noted Sacramento grocer and wine expert Darrell Corti suggested adding Schioppettino to their vineyard, as using some of this variety can be a good way to add acid and color to blends, though it turned out to also do well as a varietal wine. The barrel sample showed darker fruit, earth, and loads of spice on the nose, with fine acidity and bigger tannins. Andis is looking to start a special Italian grape variety wine program, starting with their Barbera, Schioppettino, and Primitivo, with plans to add more Italian varieties in the future. We finished up with the 2018 Original Grandpère Vineyard Zinfandel, tasted from a puncheon. Even for such a young barrel sample, this was a standout, with bright fresh raspberry and blueberry, earth, and pepper, with a lively texture – great potential.
My friends and I really enjoyed our visit with Lorenzo at Andis, and he was a charming and very knowledgeable host for our group. Near the end of our visit, we traded a few stories related to family dinners, since Thanksgiving had been only two days earlier. Lorenzo had the best story, and some great advice – to avoid big arguments during family dinners, the first person who brings up politics has to wash the dishes!
The Andis wines have a recognizable Amador character, yet they show more acidity than those of many other producers in the area, which should help to make them more food-friendly. Though Philippe Melka and his winemaking team have only been with Andis for a couple of years, I got the impression from another vintner I spoke with that he’s helping to raise the quality level of the wines there. I certainly thought the most recent releases, as well as the tank and barrel samples, were very good. I should note that having a famous winemaker on board doesn’t automatically translate to high prices – the Andis wines are mostly in the $20-$30 range, and there’s currently nothing over $40. I should also mention that small bites to go with the wines are prepared in-house and are available on weekends at the tasting room.
My favorites among the Andis wines were the 2014 Original Grandpère Vineyard Zinfandel, 2016 Bill Dillian Vineyard Sémillon, and 2016 “Akuna Block” Estate Grenache. Among the tank and barrel samples, I thought that the 2018 Sauvignon Blanc, 2018 Sémillon, 2018 Rosé, and 2018 Original Grandpère Vineyard Zinfandel showed particular promise. Andis boasts a distinctive winery and tasting room, and the wines are distinctive as well – they should be on your list of Amador County wineries to visit.
Courtesy of: Amador Vintners Association (AmadorWine.com)
Visit with Les & Sharon Heinsen of Element 79 Wines