Amador Day 1, 2025

​Amador is a small county lying east of Sacramento.  It is the home of Sutter’s Mill – yes, the Sutter’s Mill where gold was discovered in 1849!  Needless to say, at one time it was teeming with prospectors searching for gold, and many others offering services to help the successful ones to spend that gold.  More than one of this latter group started wineries to provide a higher level of alcoholic drink, bringing European vines in from the east coast.
Wait, you say, how was this possible?  Old World vines could not be grown east of the Rocky Mountains.  True, if they were planted outside.  But it turns out that there were grapes grown in hot houses for eating, the most prominent of these varieties is now known as Zinfandel.  Hence, Zinfandel was planted throughout the county until Prohibition hit in 1920 – and some of those plants are still producing wine….
Wait, you say, weren’t the vines pulled up during Prohibition, as it was illegal to make wine?  Yes, it was illegal to make and sell wine, but you could make it for your own consumption (or for churches).  So, rather than pull up the Zinfandel vines they shipped the grapes by train over the Rockies to those cities with large Italian populations, such as Chicago.  It is said that one individual in Chicago, a fellow by the name of Al Capone, had tons of grapes shipped in for his personal use….
Today, Amador County, with a population that is slightly greater than 1% of that of San Diego County, has a well-established wine industry, specializing in Old Vine Zinfandel.  Naturally, our group of intrepid explorers had to go there.
We were there for three days, visiting three wineries per day.  Our first stop was at a tasting room for the Turley Wine Cellars.  I won’t post pictures of this facility as it was permanently shut down shortly after our visit.  I hope that we weren’t the cause.  Anyway, we found their Zinfandel wines to be quite nice.  I liked one from their Rinaldi Vineyard (picture below), fruity with a high black pepper taste.

​Our second stop was at Vino Noceto.  With such an Italian name it is not hard to figure out that they specialize in Italian varietals.  Nothing special, but a nice facility as shown below.

​Our last stop on the first day was the best, Scott Harvey Wines.  Scott Harvey started in Napa, then spread his wings and set up this winery in Amador County.  By the way, all three of the wineries on this first day are right next to each other, with Scott Harvey in the middle.

​Their wines are quite nice across the board.  Not all the grapes are grown in Amador County, however, something we found to be quite common in the nine wineries we visited.  At the same time, we were told that at least one vineyard had not even bothered to pick their grapes.