After a too-long delay, the continuation of this series. Note the date.
13 September 2003 – Sierra Foothills, California
In-n-Out Burger – Theresa has the In-n-Out hotline programmed into her cell phone. When one needs a 2 x 4 and fries "well done," one really needs them. In any case, if there’s a better and better-executed fast-food concept, I’m not familiar with it. Why can’t all roadside burgers be this good?
Sierra Vista – This was the first name nearly everyone suggested when I was looking for Sierra Foothills wineries to visit. Even I can take a hint, and so…
At the end of an exceedingly unassuming drive through not much of anywhere, a road climbs into an enveloping stand of trees. All is quiet and remote, yet the small tasting room on the winery grounds is bustling with visitors, and we wait while someone retrieves proprietor John MacCready, who has himself issued an invitation and has graciously agreed to taste with us. He arrives, a soft-spoken but quietly forceful older man with a gentle yet firm confidence in his history and direction, grabs a small collection of bottles, and leads us to a peaceful picnic table at the edge of vines that flow gently eastward. The grey-capped peaks of the Sierras glisten on the horizon. It’s a beautiful sight, and a majestic setting for a tasting.
Though the winery is actually rather established (purchased in 1972, first commercial vintage in 1977), this is still an up-and-coming property of sorts, no doubt due to its remote location away from the glamour regions of California. MacCready says he was the first to plant syrah in the Foothills in 1979, following his judgment that the region exhibited a mesoclimate similar to that of the Northern Rhône, and the natural assumption that the area should specialize in zinfandel is quietly but inexorably being questioned by his, and other, wineries.
The remoteness that oppresses the winery’s market profile has been an issue from the very beginning, as MacCready had to run his own telephone line into the estate (then, as now, situated on the Red Rock Ridge at the end of the self-named Cabernet Way), which was then little more than a carpet of trees. Cabernet sauvignon was first in the ground, followed by chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, and recently the usual collection of Rhône-derived varieties centered around the benchmark syrah. Zinfandel, recommended to MacCready from the by his first team of agricultural advisors, is also planted in some quantity, despite his personal dispathy for the grape.
Nevada on the horizon
Plantings have grown to supply 90% of the estate’s production, which has not yet reached a natural limit of "twelve-thousand cases, if we plant everywhere." The winery encompasses what MacCready identifies as four or five distinct mesoclimates, and grapes have been planted (or, in some cases, re-grafted) to match each site’s characteristics: syrah on the hilltops, zin and grenache on the southwest slopes (which MacCready notes can be "marginal" for zin in cooler years), other grapes where they can find worthwhile sites.
The afternoon is waning, and while conversation in this environment is pleasant enough, we commence with tasting.
Sierra Vista 2002 Viognier (El Dorado County) – Slightly alcoholic (this is 14.3%; MacCready says he "shoots for 14%"), thick, and oily, showing honeysuckle, apple blossom and steamed mint with a drying finish leaning towards citrus. A little yeasty, overall, but an interesting and fairly complex wine.
A tasting picnic with John MacCready
Sierra Vista 2002 Fume Blanc (El Dorado County) – Lemongrass, lime, green kiwifruit and sweet Mandarin orange, with growing apple-skin bitterness on the finish; this is rather full and even the slightest bit fat for a sauvignon, with a touch of alcoholic heat on the nose. From a vineyard that the winery was about to sell, until daughter Michelle asked to take it over.
Sierra Vista 2002 "Belle Rose" (El Dorado County) – Strawberry bubblegum and light, leafy floral notes with ripe red currants and other, assorted berries. I’m guessing a grenache-heavy blend, and I’m right (there’s some syrah as well). Tasty enough for a simple summer quaffer, but no more than that (in intention or execution).
Three up, three down, we now delve into the winery’s more important and more developed lineup of reds, starting with a pair of syrahs. The site of the winery’s principal syrah vineyard, the Red Rock Ridge, comes from MacCready falling in love with the name and implied personality of Côte-Rôtie and seeking a "roasted slope" of his very own. He believes he’s found it.
Sierra Vista 2000 Syrah (Sierra Foothills) – From a vineyard planted to clone 1 at 3000 feet, near Amador city. Dark, hickory-smoked plum, blackberry, and black cherry with thick, seedy tannin coating the mouth like fine-grained peanut butter. The hard seediness only increases on the finish. This might settle down with some age, but right now it’s a bit of a brawler, and somewhat imbalanced away from fruit.
Sierra Vista 2000 Syrah Red Rock Ridge (El Dorado County) – "I don't like high-alcohol wines. I work at getting ripeness at lower alcohols," notes MacCready, and at 13.1% this has to be at near the very low end for prestige California syrah. From the vineyard on which the winery sits, and planted to the "more elegant" Estrella clone, Clone 174, and Clone 383 (the latter two from the Northern Rhône) at 2800 feet, this wine shows dark plum liqueur and olallieberry jam on the nose, and fabulous fruit density on the palate. There’s a dusting of black pepper as well. The only caveat is a slight sourness from the ample acidity, perhaps a tradeoff for picking before the grapes turn to raisins. Still, it’s a very minor component of an otherwise delicious wine, one with good aging potential and a ripe-but-not-overripe complexity one finds less and less often from California.
Grapes, getting there
Sierra Vista 2001 "Fleur de Montagne" (El Dorado County) – A classic Rhônish blend of grenache, mourvèdre, syrah and cinsault, coming in at 13.9% alcohol but seemingly much more restrained than that. Dark raspberry jam, strawberry, and walnut; this is a big-fruited wine with muscular shoulders of tannin, balanced and in need of long aging. On the finish, there are deliciously unexpected traces of sweet hazelnut cream and honey.
There’s a trio of zins on offer, though I note that MacCready doesn’t taste them along with us.
Sierra Vista 2000 Zinfandel (El Dorado County) – From the Reeves Vineyard, and a new zin clone grafted onto old zinfandel rootstocks, which have delivered a wine at an extremely light (for zin) 12.9% alcohol. Dense tannin and gritty, sand-covered apples and blackberries mark this wine, which is rather simplistic and tense. Chalk it up to a surly youth.
Sierra Vista 1999 Zinfandel Reeves Vineyard (El Dorado County) – A jump in alcohol, to 14.2%, and a huge jump in quality. Rich blackberry and blueberry with lovely floral aromas and firm, ripe tannin providing structural balance. The finish is strikingly long. A very nice wine.
Sierra Vista 2000 Zinfandel "Old Clone" (El Dorado County) – And here’s yet another step up the ladder. Dense plum, blueberry, and barky/briary wild jam; to call this wine wild and Port-like would be aromatically accurate but unduly indicative of a sweetness and alcoholic heat which it does not possess. The tannin has a lovely shade of graphite in both taste and texture, and the wine finishes long and beautiful, strong yet balanced throughout. 14.6%.
A father and his bottle
From the boisterousness of zinfandel, we move to the solemn reserve of cabernet sauvignon. MacCready tells of seeing a lovely red-tinged cabernet vineyard in Napa and wanting that color on his hillside. "The first year there were no red leaves. When, by the fourth year, there were still no red leaves, I looked into it. It turns out that the Napa vines I saw were diseased."
Sierra Vista 1999 Cabernet Sauvignon (El Dorado County) – Black cherry, blueberry, and blackberry with cedar, tobacco, and a ripe, almost bloody redolence; big, dense, and quite long. By far the best of the entry-level varietal bottlings, and rather striking for an inexpensive cab.
Sierra Vista 1999 Cabernet Sauvignon "Five Star Reserve" (El Dorado County) – This is a hand-selection from a vineyard subjected to extra fruit-dropping during the growing season and a more rigorous sorting table. From there it is destemmed but not crushed, followed by whole-berry fermentation in open-topped containers, and put into French oak for three years. In other words, a deliberative effort to make a showpiece cabernet. It bears all the signs: smoky tobacco, dense berry skins, and a solid, almost brutish and hard texture full of stiff (but ripe) tannin and light-but-present vanilla and butter notes. Long and structured, this should age as well as they intend, but it edges a lot closer to high-end cabernet anonymity than any other of Sierra Vista’s wines, and is thus more than a bit of an outlier in their lineup. Very, very good for those who like this style, though it doesn’t yet have both feet firmly in the established CalCab™ camp, and thus possesses qualities of interest for those who prefer a less forceful approach. Age will undoubtedly improve it.
Sierra Vista 1999 Syrah "25th Anniversary" (El Dorado County) – All decked-out in a heavy – and heavily-designed – showpiece bottle (MacCready acknowledges that it’s more than a bit showy, but also that it’s intentionally so), this is a special bottling of the Estrella clone (with 5% grenache added to the mix), and an absolute blockbuster despite its 13.5% alcohol. Ultra-dense plum and blackberry announce the imminent arrival of a huge fruit bomb, yet there’s so much wonderfully-balanced structure and chewy, leathery texture here that the feared explosion never occurs. An unbelievable symbiosis of intensity and balance, this is a stunning effort with a majestic result.
We’ve got vines on the horizon
Plus, as MacCready notes with a grin, "it’s a cult wine in Pittsburgh," which took 80 of the winery’s 90-case production. And who can resist that special allure?
As the winery moves solidly into the second generation, there seems to be almost unlimited upside here…with one key exception: the virtually non-existent reputation of El Dorado County outside a small coterie of dedicated wine adventurers. There’s quality here, and at a few other wineries, to contend with many a well-known estate in any of the prestige appellations, but is anyone paying attention?
MacCready isn’t worried. Rather, he’s proudly optimistic. "This is the last place in California where you can buy land to make great wine." It’s a bold, assertive statement, but if it ever comes to pass, Sierra Vista will have done as much as anyone to make it happen.
Mine House Inn – At a turn in a narrow road that wheels and spins through dry, hilly grassland spotted with scraggly conifers, Amador City is a town that really doesn’t have all that much going for it – a few businesses, an abandoned mine, a post office – except for its half-preserved and half-retro gold town atmosphere and a pleasant setting. Overlooking the mine’s rusting black metal head is this B&B, split between an original building that held a collection of mining town offices and a slightly newer residential abode. The rooms are cute in their dark, period fashion (though the bathrooms need more than a bit work), but the entire establishment is tattered and worn around the edges, as if years of needed upkeep had been almost, but not entirely, neglected. A nice pool, and even nicer hot tub, and a small flower garden are exceptions, as are some rather tasty breakfasts served on the garden terrace, but this is a B&B that could use a little TLC. Still, it’s a decent value.
St. George Hotel – Another problem with the Mine House Inn: the proprietress gives us ragingly incorrect directions to this out-of-the-way establishment in Volcano, a town that pairs a remarkable inaccessibility and why-is-this-here?-ness with two dining establishments, a regarded outdoor theatre troupe, and an eponymous online access provider. Too bad you can’t get there from…well, anywhere. We get egregiously lost in the literal middle of nowhere, and rely on a barely-there analog roaming signal from Theresa’s cell phone on one ultra-remote hillside to inform the restaurant that we’re going to be what is, eventually, well over an hour late.
Connects to 16.9% Alcohol Blvd.
When we finally arrive, sure we’ve missed dinner service and resigned to the possibility of not eating at all, we’re not even the last people to sit down. Despite the late hour, we’re welcomed with night-long, and excellent, service. A spacious dining room, country/rustic-formal with couples and families and more than the usual share of locals drifting in and out, is the setting for some pretty decent food, unfortunately paired with a somewhat disappointing wine list. There are a few local options of interest, however.
Cedarville 2000 Syrah (El Dorado County) – Fruity and smooth, showing the usual warmer-climate syrah palette of aromas (none of them overripe) and soft, extremely ripe tannin. Still, it’s rather simple and ordinary, and while there’s nothing wrong with it, I hope (in vain) for more, at least partly based on previous experience with the property’s wines.
Domaine de la Terre Rouge 2000 Muscat à Petit Grains (Shenandoah Valley) – Bright citrus and floral notes, with crunchy sweetness and a spirituous finish. Fortified fun.
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![[Theresa & John MacCready]](http://www.myspeakerscorner.com/forum/user_images/tci_ca03_sierra_vista_duo.jpg)
![[grapes]](http://www.myspeakerscorner.com/forum/user_images/tci_ca03_sierra_vista_grapes.jpg)
![[John MacCready]](http://www.myspeakerscorner.com/forum/user_images/tci_ca03_john_maccready.jpg)
![[vines & Sierra-Nevadas]](http://www.myspeakerscorner.com/forum/user_images/tci_ca03_sierra_vista_vines_horizon.jpg)
![[Zinfandel Drive]](http://www.myspeakerscorner.com/forum/user_images/tci_ca03_zinfandel_drive.jpg)