Amador Day 2, 2025

​Day two of our journey to the remote vineyards of Amador County.  We began with an almost edible breakfast in our hotel then a stop at Helwig Winery for wine tasting and then lunch.  Probably should have done the lunch first – not good to drink wine on an empty stomach.

​We tasted a nice variety of wines.  I particularly liked their Davancy Barbera, which is saying a lot as I am not a Barbera fan. 

​There aren’t a lot of restaurants in Amador County, so we decided to eat at Helwig.  Well, we had advance notice from Doc Ed that this was a good place to eat, and he got that right.  Loved the apple onion grilled cheese….

​But the story of day two in Amador County is the Story, i.e., Story Winery.  This very old winery was purchased a few years ago by a family from Georgia.  Not the state of Georgia, but the country of Georgia, located on the eastern shore of the Black Sea.  While they make wine in the state of Georgia, much of is made from the Muscadine grape, a unique North American grape species from which some of the worst wine in the world is made.  The people of Asian Georgia have been making wine for around 10,000 years!  The picture below shows some of their vines – the vines in their Amador vineyard, that is – which are more than 100 years old.  These particular vines are of the Mission grape, the grape brought to California by the Spanish and grown in their missions to make wine for the church.  The facility, also shown below, is quite rustic.

​The Georgian method of making wines is quite different from the French and Italian, though it is likely that the Romans made some of their wines their way.  Known as Qvevri, after the grapes are crushed the must, sometimes including the stems, is put into very large clay vessels.  How large?  See pictures below.

​The vessels are buried in the ground to keep temperature and humidity relatively constant.  Note that the wine is both fermented and aged in these vessels, sometimes for very long periods of time.  The resulting taste profile is quite different from wines made the more modern way.  Story is both importing wines from Georgia as well as making wines using the Qvevri method.  We tasted one wine that was subjected to both Qvevri and oak aging.  While wines made using the Qvevri method do not appeal to me, I suggest that it is well worth trying them out yourself.  They might even give you a discount if you can pronounce Qvevri….
They have a small tasting room, so most of the seating is outside.  Their wine list is shown below, as well as a bottle of their imported wine.

​Our intrepid group, having avoided falling into a Qvevri, went on to our third and final winery of the day, Iron Hub Winery.  By the way, all three of the wineries we visited on day two are located in Plymouth.  Iron Hub is a family run winery fitting the norm for Amador County in offering very nice old vine Zinfandel and much newer vine Barbera, while purchasing some grapes from other areas to add wines such as Petite Syrah to their wine list.  Beautiful facility as well.