Wine tasting: Avanguardia, Sierra Starr and Smith in Grass Valley
WINE HAS BEEN MADE AND SOLD IN Grass Valley since the French and Italian immigrants settled there in the 1800s. With its historic charm, shopping, dining and lodging, downtown Grass Valley has become a mecca for tasting rooms in the foothills. As the wineries are preparing to open, the tasting rooms are warm and bustling. […]
Montoliva Vineyard: Tuscany in the foothills
WINE SHOULD TELL A STORY. Montoliva’s started years ago, when the Earth shifted to create a mountainous region of granite and quartz. Then climate and glaciers combined to grind the rock into a coarse sand and deposit it along the Sierra foothills. At the same time, the area’s weather settled into a pattern of warm […]
Pilot Peak Winery: A destination winery in the foothills
THIS YEAR MARKS THE fifth annual release of wines at Pilot Peak Winery, one of the foothills’ premier destination wineries. To celebrate, the winery has expanded its signature, flower-filled terraces, relocated the dance floor and added colorful landscaping. The Penn Valley winery, on a hillside overlooking Pilot Peak, continues to offer varied events during the […]
Solune Winegrowers: “Distinctive wines” from the foothills
SOLUNE WINEGROWERS combines the French words for sun (soleil) and moon (lune) to convey the premium grape growing climate in the Sierra foothills. The name also reflects the roots of winemaker and co- owner Jacques Mercier, who grew up in Quebec, Canada, and now is a regular international wine tasting judge (his most recent was […]
Explore the Placer Wine Trail
THE PLACER COUNTY WINE TRAIL IS A group of premier wineries in Auburn and Newcastle that are working together to raise awareness of their award-winning wines. Wine Trail wineries are open for tasting on weekends and participating wineries include Baumbach, Dono dal Cielo, Fawnridge, Lone Buffalo, Mt. Vernon and Viña Castellano. This year, the group […]
From vines to wines
HURRY UP AND WAIT” AND “QUALITY over quantity” best described described this year’s wine harvest in the Sierra foothills. A wet spring and cool summer slowed down the harvest to well beyond September for many wineries—one of the latest in memory. “In agriculture, you take it as it comes,” says Lynn Wilson, co-owner and winemaker […]
Lone Buffalo Vineyards: Where the buffalo roam
THE FOOTHILLS HERITAGE IS STEEPED IN WINEMAKING, not just gold mining. Vineyards were introduced in Placer County in 1848—the same year gold was discovered. Prohibition shut down this bigger-than-Napa wine industry in 1920. But winemaking made a comeback in the ’70s. Nowhere is the county’s recaptured heritage more visible than at Lone Buffalo Vineyards, a […]
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