Amador Foothill – I’m here to taste wine (of course), but also to meet wine board denizen Mark Willstatter, who’s been enormously helpful in planning each step of our Foothills sojourn. He’s manning the rather plain (though since remodeled, no doubt for the better) tasting room by himself, and with the exception of one drop-in couple midway through our tasting, we’re alone, which give us the chance to chat about…pretty much everything. I arrive ever so slightly pressed for time, with ideas of further stops in my head, but soon give up on them so as to better enjoy a quiet and relaxed visit.
Amador Foothill 2001 Sémillon (Shenandoah Valley) – Grassy lime, lemon, and lemongrass. Simple, direct, and a little wifty.
Amador Foothill 2002 Fumé Blanc (Shenandoah Valley) – Dense grass aromas with tart citrus and green apples. Drying on the finish. Structured with restrained fruit, and a very credible effort. When I mention to Mark that I like this one, he nods knowingly. “I thought you might.”
Amador Foothill 2002 “Rosato” (Amador County) – A saignée of sangiovese. Dry strawberry and flower pollen honey, buttered raspberry, and a long, dry, simple finish. An uncritical rosé for uncritical slugging.
Amador Foothill 2000 Carignane (Amador County) – From 80-year old vines: rough, raw bubblegum and raspberry aromas with a soft, cotton-candy texture that finishes oddly. I’ve had this in the past, and it’s been better. This one’s worse.
Amador Foothill 2001 Zinfandel Clockspring (Shenandoah Valley) – Organically-farmed 30-year old vines, showing a graphite-like texture with powdery strawberries. Light and a little fluffy, with a finish reminiscent of cottonmouth. Yet it’s quite drinkable, despite its odd textural issues. 14.5%.
Amador Foothill 2000 Zinfandel Ferrero (Shenandoah Valley) – 40-year old vines. Plum rind and strawberry with crushed rose petals, good tannin, and great acidity. The finish it a bit dry, but otherwise this is a good (if somewhat bracing) zin. I don’t think it will age all that well, however; the balance isn’t quite there. 14.5%.
Amador Foothill 2001 Zinfandel Esola (Shenandoah Valley) – 60-year old vines this time. Big licorice, plum, and black cherry with more of that striking acidity and a dusting of dried thyme. The tannin, however, is on the green side, and that unfortunately detracts from an otherwise good wine. 15%.
Vineyard tractor pall
Amador Foothill 2000 Sangiovese “Barrel Select” (Shenandoah Valley) – Leathery strawberry seed, dark and dusky; 5% syrah in the blend may mark this wine almost as much as the saignée. It’s fine for short-term drinking, but I can’t ferret out any complexity.
Amador Foothill 2000 Sangiovese “Grand Reserve” (Shenandoah Valley) – 15% syrah this time, and an obvious effort at making a more “serious” wine. It’s somewhat successful along those lines, though I don’t know if it’s more or less to my personal taste as a result. Thick, dense strawberry and chocolate-covered herbs finish long and…well, that’s it. Just long. This may get a little better with a few more years’ aging, or it might start falling apart. Either way, this lacks complexity in a fashion similar to that of its younger brother.
Amador Foothill 2000 Syrah Hollander (Sierra Foothills) – From infant vines, just three years old. Herbs (thyme and rosemary), black dirt, and plum eau de vie with a long finish. They might be on to something here, if they can hold on to these grapes, but the wine is (as one would expect from vines of this age) pretty simple right now.
Amador Foothill 2001 Syrah Hollander (Sierra Foothills) – Bottled but not yet released at the time I’m tasting it. There’s a clear improvement over the 2000; whether it’s the vines, the vintage, or the winemaking I can’t tell. Nonetheless, the wine is thicker-textured, showing fuller-bodied plum, black cherry, and the tiniest emergence of some structure around that fresh young fruit. Potential…definite potential…but still, I’d drink this one young.
Flush with victory
Dinner – We’re not actually all that hungry, and so we finish off a small collection of picnic foods at our B&B with the last half of a bottle from lunch.
Renwood “Sierra Series” 2002 Viognier “Select Series” (Lodi) – Peach gum and honeysuckle with breezy hints of flowers. A touch soupy with food, but pleasant and summery.
Between lunch and dinner, however, we were forced to solve an important problem: how does one keep wine cold in the absence of refrigeration? As the accompanying picture reveals, we stumble upon an ideal, if not exactly elegant, solution.
![[tractor]](http://www.myspeakerscorner.com/forum/user_images/tci_ca03_af_tractor.jpg)
![[wine in toilet]](http://www.myspeakerscorner.com/forum/user_images/tci_ca03_wine_toilet.jpg)