East of Sacramento and west of Lake Tahoe has become one of our favorite winery haunts. It’s the foothills of the Sierra Mountains. It’s a region that began growing grapes in the gold rush days of 1849 but has more recently begun flourishing into a major wine region of California.

We visited a small portion of the region for the third time in October. Over four days we visited nine wineries. Few of the wineries remain open 7 days. Most only offer tastings on the weekends so this had to be a long weekend trip.

Andis Wines was our first stop. We’d been before and were delighted to return to try their new releases. Our host, Nicole was terrific and the wines were too!

Our favorites were their 2021 Painted Fields Old Vine Zinfandel, 2020 Enor GSM blend, the 2021 Di Stasio Old vine Zinfandel and the 2021 Cabernet Franc.

The Di Stasio Vineyard is right next door to Andis. After tasting the Zinfandel Andis made from Di Stasio’s grapes and on a recommendation from Nicole, we decided to make a stop at Di Stasio’s tasting room.

Di Stasio’s tasting room, like most in the region is right in their vineyards. It’s relatively small and on this day, very quiet. We closed the place down and headed off with a bottle of their 2019 Estate Old Vine Zinfandel.

On our second day we stayed around Placerville and tasted at Skinner and Kehret. Both have exceptional mountain top views. While taking in the view at Skinner we enjoyed the 2020 Native Rouge.

At Kehret Vineyards, well, it may have been all the wines that we truly enjoyed. Wow! A great wine tasting with an absolutely passionate host – Bret Smith. It is so much fun to discover a winery producing sensational wines. This is definitely a hidden gem!

Kehret has about 17 acres of vineyards on site and produces around 5000 cases. They source the remainder of the grapes for their wines from the diversity of grapes grown throughout the Sierra foothills. The winemaker is Steve Leveque whose winemaking work reads like a who’s who of the wine world: HALL, Chalk Hill, Opus One, Mondavi.

And, what better place to relax and enjoy a picnic lunch with a bottle of Kehret’s Grenache.

This is an absolutely do not miss winery when you come to the Fair Play region of the Sierra Foothills!

And, yes, we carried off a few bottles including the 2020 versions of their Chardonnay (a nice surprise for this region), Grenache, Zinfandel, and Roscoe Red.

Our third day, Saturday we were off to try Madroña’s wines. It probably was not the best choice of times to visit there as Madroña is located in the middle of the over-popular Apple Hill carnival like festival that draws thousands, I mean thousands of people into this tiny back-road apple area from August through October. But, we managed to get through the long lines of traffic finally to taste at one of the oldest Placerville wineries.

The wine tasting is uniquely offered. Served out on picnic tables under the trees, You chose a flight of wine and your host brings that flight to you on a three-glass carrier. Our favorite was the 2019 Cabernet Franc-Signature Collection.

We finished the day tasting at Boeger and Lava Cap. Boeger is a big producer and has one of the larger tasting facilities in the foothills. I recommend visiting on a weekday to have the best tasting experience.

They makes an extensive variety of wines. A favorite of mine from a previous trip was the Cabernet Franc. After tasting the new release it still remains a favorite for me but we did leave with others including the 2019 Walker Zinfandel, 2020 Barbera, and 2020 Cabernet Franc.

We had tasted Lava Cap’s wines at a Rhone Ranger event last spring and we were anxious to try them again. Between it being a weekend, and the apple festivals and wine member pick-ups, the place was rocking – not a good time to get to taste much beyond the tasting menu. We did however enjoy the 2020 Estate Petite Sirah very much.

Sunday, our final day, we visited Terre Rouge/Easton, Turley, and Scott Harvey.

Terre Rouge & Easton are Bill Easton’s wines. Terre Rouge are the Rhône varietal wines he makes and Easton are his non-Rhône wines – those wines best made from the regions grapes i.e. Zins, Cabs, and Sauvignon Blanc. Bill believes that his wines should be ready to enjoy upon release so he holds many of them back. All the reds we tasted were from the 2014 and 2015 vintages.

We were able to taste a few varietals off the tasting menu this visit and enjoyed the 2014 Terra Rouge Monarch Mine Vineyard Syrah and 2014 Easton Pinot Noir most of all.

Turley has a fun tasting room outside Plymouth. It’s a popular tasting room – comfortable with spacious outdoor patios and picnic area. They offer a fantastic array of their old vintage wines to choose from that are perfect to pair with a picnic lunch onsite.

Our visit to Turley was to picnic and stay on to taste the new releases offered. We had a 2014 Bedrock Vineyard Zinfandel with our picnic, and left with two more Zins: the 2012 Heminway Vineyard and the 2012 Dragon Vineyard.

Scott Harvey was the second surprise find of this trip. Owner, winemaker Scott Harvey produces some great wine. Hosted by Ed Dean we tasted on and off the menu and discovered some delicious wine.

The wines we especially liked were 2020 Mountain Selectio Barbera, 2020 Tempranillo, and the 2020 Toy Vineyard Barbera.

I just want to thank Nicole at Andis, Bret at Kehret and Ed at Scott Harvey for sharing their passion for wine with us and making our tasting so exceptionally fun!

Salud!

And worth noting:

Amador 360 is a wine tasting facility offering the wines from winemakers that do not have tasting rooms locally. We stopped in to pick up a bottle of Adam Saake’s 2022 Amador County Zinfandel on our way into Plymouth.

Marlene and Glen’s Dead Fly Diner – A Plymouth, CA landmark. Truly good diner fare. Honest!

Placerville, CA -Great old town. Thriving main street. The Independent – excellent dinner.