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Northern California
Our Story and Mission- Ever since we were old enough to drink wine, we have been frequenting winery tasting rooms throughout California. Our trips in the late 70’s involved stops at 6-8 wineries (or maybe more) in a day. My first date with my wife was a day of wine tasting in Sonoma 31 years ago. So we are experienced with this stuff. I think there are several ingredients to a satisfying Tasting Room experience. The wine has to be good for starters and generally the known wineries all put out pretty decent wine. But there are other key factors in making the experience memorable. Sometimes a classy tasting room works for us, but sometimes standing around a barrel outside does the trick. At other times it is just good service that pleases us. Certainly one of the keys is the person serving the wine. So there are a whole bunch of things that make visiting a Tasting Room a positive experience. The point of this blog is to talk about and recommend Winery Tasting Rooms where we have had good experiences.The blog was conceived after spending a weekend with my sisters who normally do not frequent wineries and running into a couple of disappointing stops.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Madrona Vineyards

Camino (Placerville), CA

In all the years we have tasted wine around the sierra foothills for some reason we had never been to Madrona Vineyards.  Madrona is just up the road from the areas most popular winery Boeger which we have been to countless times and have now stopped going there because it has become too popular.  Madrona has remained in the same family since it opened in 1973.  Today it is run by the husband and wife team of Paul and Maggie Bush.  We had stopped at our favorite Camino (5 miles east of Placerville) winery, Bumgarner, and were headed back to Placerville and then on to volunteer at our friend Rob Swain’s Motherlode Century, a 100 mile annual bike ride.  I passed by the entrance to Madrona, and then knowing that we were going to be pouring some of their wine at the post-ride party the next day figured we would go back and learn a bit about their wine. 


We drove down their long driveway past many different businesses (christmas tree farm, pumpkin patch, apple business) and arrived at the 1970’s era wood sided winery tasting room surrounded by Madrona and other trees.  The facility is built into the hill with the winery on the lower level and offices and the tasting room up top.  The tasting room probably looks somewhat similar to what it looked 30+ years ago.  Matt, a long time club member and one year employee of the tasting room was our host.  There is a complimentary tasting and an enhanced $5.00 tasting.  We said we wanted to taste everything.  Everything appeared to be about a dozen wines and they were arranged from Red to White.  Matt said the style of their wines really led to that order of tasting.  It seems a bit odd but when starting to taste the red wines which in general were very restrained it made sense I guess.  Reds are generally what we drink so this worked in our favor.   

Zinfandel and Chardonnay seem to be there specialty and the wines are grouped into the Hillside and Signature lines with some additional Single Vineyard bottlings.  The list starts with the Hillside which are the more standard, mixed vineyard and vineyard appellation wines.  They were at first taste very light but I think well balanced and easy drinkers.  I think the grapes may be picked a bit earlier or at lower brix than many of the wines we are used to.  We had the Zinfandel, Shiraz/Cab, Merlot, and Nebbiola from the Hillside line and then we had the Zinfandel, Cab Franc, Cab, Malbec and Quintet (five wine blend) from the Signature line.  I liked all the wines other than the Nebbiola and no doubt the Signature wine packed a bit more punch than the Hillside group.  They were appropriately priced with the Hillside wines below $20 and the Signature wines in the mid $20 range.  We also tried the $12 El Tinto- Lot 34 Red Blend and it certainly has its place with us.

While we were tasting we did meet the owners Paul and Maggie, who had been meeting with a couple of members of a local wine related marketing organization and had come out to pour a special ‘not on the list’ wine.  We too tasted the refreshing Rose and chatted with the group.  We did not taste any of white wines because we had really had enough.  My guess though is that Red wines are what Madrona does best. 

Over the course of the next couple of days we have revisited the Hillside Zinfandel and I think it is a pretty nice $18 (or cheaper at a local wine shop maybe) bottle.  We did pour the Hillside Zin and Chardonnay after the bike ride and unfortunately not enough people got to taste it.  For some reason people riding 100 miles, or 66 in the case of a metric century, prefer to drink a cold beer which was also being poured.

I think if you are in the area or want to stop at one or two wineries right off of Highway 50 on your way up to Tahoe that Madrona should be a stop.  They have been there a long time which says something and the wines are pretty good.  There are many wineries within 5 to 7 miles of Madrona so you can certainly make a day out of it.  I think it is also great to support wineries that support local events, such as the Motherlode Century bike ride.  By the way the beer had been donated by Sierra Nevada of Chico which we also support.

What we liked- Low key, fairly priced wines, a nice area.  It is also always nice to meet the owners.

What we bought- The Quintet at $28 and the El Tinto at $12.  The El Tinto is in the ‘drink now’ pile and won’t be around long.

Madrona Vineyards
2560 High Hill Road
Camino, CA  95709
(530) 644-5948
www.madronavineyards.com



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