Amador country: 150 years of winemaking History Spanish missionaries introduced viticulture to California in the 18th Century, but it was the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1849 that firmly implanted European winemaking traditions in California soil. As fortune-seekers, many of them European immigrants, flocked to western foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountain range to prospect for gold, small wineries arose to help slake their thirst. John Sutter’s land was overrun as gold rush fever swept the State. Even after the mines ran dry, the foothill wine industry grew and prospered.

By 1890, there were over 100 wineries in Amador, Claveras, El Dorado, and Nevada counties – the area known as the Mother Lode. Many were operated by Italian immigrants whose Mediterranean viticultural traditions shaped their New World winemaking practices.

Unfortunately, Prohibition devastated this frontier wine community. Although commercial winemaking resumed quickly after Repeal in coastal counties, foothill viticulture remained virtually dormant until 1968.

That year, Bob Trinchero, winemaker at Sutter Home in Napa Valley, sampled a superb homemade Zinfandel vinified from old-vine grapes grown at the Deaver Ranch in Amador County’s Shenandoah Valley. Astounded by the wine’s depth of colour and flavour, Trinchero purchased 20 tons of Deaver Ranch grapes, which he used to produce Sutter Home’s 1968 Amador County Zinfandel.

The intense, spicy red wine quickly gained legendary status among wine lovers throughout California, convincing many that Zinfandel could produce world-class viticultural diamond in the rough.

In 1970, inspired by Sutter Home’s example, winemaker Gary Cott and his father-in-law, banker Walter Field, established Montevina Winery in Amador’s Shenandoah Valley next door to the Deaver Ranch. The foothills first post-Prohibition winery, it soon was producing top-quality Zinfandel, Barbera, and Sauvignon Blanc.

The commercial success of these wines lured others to Amador’s golden hillsides, prompting the revival of the historic Sierra foothill wine industry. Today there are 40 wineries in the foothill region, half of them in Amador County.

The Vineyards

Montevina’s estate vineyards in the Shenandoah Valley of Amador County lie approximately 125 miles northeast of San Francisco and 40 miles southeast of the state capital of Sacramento, in the heart of California’s historic Sierra foothill gold country.

They encompass 260 acres of vines planted between 1954 and 1977, which are divided almost equally between Zinfandel (approximately 115 acres) and Italian grape varieties such as Barbera (67 miles), Sangiovese (30 miles), Nebbiolo, Refosco, Aleatico, Freisa, Greco, and Aglianico.

The vines are planted in Sierra series soils (i.e., thin, rocky, decomposed granite) on a series of gentle slopes between 1,500 and 2,00 feet in elevation. They are grafted on a variety of disease-resistant rootstocks chosen to conform to the vigour of different varieties and to the depth, structure, and composition of the soil in different parts of the vineyard. The combination of well-drained, poor hillside soils and vines selected and managed to restrict vigour results in low crop yields (between two and four tons per acre) that promote concentrated, richly flavoured red wines.

For each grape variety Montevina’s vineyard managers employ a multiplicity of clonal selection, planting densities, and trellising systems, and they are constantly experimenting with canopy management techniques designed to maximise bud fruitfulness and red wine quality.

Montevina’s vineyards benefit from a warm (Region III) climate mitigated by cool night time breezes that cascade down from the Sierra Nevada and routinely cause temperatures to drop 30 to 40 degrees during the evening hours. This intensifies colouration of the grapes and serves to maintain healthy acid levels as the grapes ripen fully on the vine, enabling Montevina winemaker Jeffery Meyers to produce full-bodied, deeply fruited red wines that retain excellent structure and balance.