Just goes to show there is always something new to see in your backyard.
We started the day driving the winding roads to the valley. This is one of those places you want to drive the back roads, and skip the quickest, freeway route. The hills are just now turning from green to gold; the trees look like they are placed "just so" among the houses, with horses, alpacas and cows scattered about. It seems there are hundreds of wineries in this area, (37 listed on the wine map, linked below, and this does not even include all the ones just north, around TooGood) certainly enough to keep you entertained for many weekends.
We turned at Somerset, up Fairplay road to Too Good winery. The owner's name is "Toogood," and while it may seem too clever, it is pretty good wine. It was, however, the most fun wine experience of the day. They have clever wine names and nice labels, and the wine is pretty good, with a few that I thought were outstanding.
Don and Jyl are members here, so we got to do all the special stuff they had going on, though I was resentful I did not get one of the cool, light purple paper bracelets to wear around. Almost ruined my day, not having one of those cool accessories.
They were having a "bottle your own" special; three different wines, you can mix and match and bottle up as much as you want for a reduced price.
So we tasted the three, a Zin, a Cab, and a blend called Smack Bang Boom. Oh, I really wanted that Smack Bang Boom to be good... but it wasn't. The Zin was great, however, so we bottled some up and I just slapped a Smack Bang Boom label on the bottle. No one will ever know or care, and we get good wine with a clever name!
After the bottling and tasting outside, we walked into the caves for more tasting. We tasted through the entire selection, including one wine called Foreplay, got to try a few "behind the counter" wines, and then got to taste out of the barrel. This was a lot of fun, and there were a couple real standouts, at least to my taste.
After and hour or so inside, we walked back into the sunshine, and had free cheeseburgers on their patio, as we listened to Jimmy Buffett and enjoyed the view.
All in all we hung around Toogood for a few hours, probably tasted toomany wines, which might explain why I preferred this one the best. At least it was the most memorable.
Or perhaps it really was the best.
As for the outstanding wines we tasted there, well, you will have to go taste and decide for yourself.
I will never get over missing out on that purple wrist band, however.
We headed south to Karmère, another winery with clever labels. The wines are all named for the daughters and grand-daughters, and they have some really nice reds. One of the Zinfandels was pretty great, I thought, and again we got to barrel taste. I liked the setting and the quirky welded scrap-metal sculptures around the winery. And, as a bonus, there were no paper wrist bands to provoke my jealous rage.
The next stop was Renwood, where they make some good, but pricey, Zinfandel and other red wines. We snagged a table outside and asked for a menu of the wine tasting selections for today; instead the waitress whisked in and just plunked two cheese plates and four flights of wine down in front of us. Two flights were assorted reds, two were zins, and unfortunately for me I had the assorted reds. Jyl graciously traded places with me, however, and I did enjoy trying the zins.
I have to say, the cheese plate looked really nice, and the little cards telling about the wine really helped the tasting. It was just curious that we had no choice in ordering what we wanted.
The unfortunate part was that we found out afterwards that we could have had a full glass of wine and sandwich special, and also that I had tasted the cheeses out of order of the wines.
So I don't know about this winery. Nice setting and all, but kind of weird about the whole ordering set up.
We finished the day up at Helwig, which has a really nice setting up on a hill. By this time the tasting room was packed, and it was about the loudest crowd I have been around in quite a while. I could barely hear Don, let alone the girl pouring for us. The wines were OK, but very expensive I thought, and in comparison to the other three wineries it was my least favorite.
Amador county wines... who knew? In general, the tastings are free, and I like it that they are mostly reds. All in all, a great day with good friends.