Our last stop in the Sierra foothills is Latcham Vineyards (www.latcham.com), also located in El Dorado county.  The tasting room here is rustic and unassuming and the people working there always friendly and knowledgeable.  Latcham Vineyards was founded by Frank Latcham in 1980.  He is a delightful man in his 90’s and he still comes to the winery to chat with people and be a part of it all.  That shows you a glimpse of the passion of winemaking.  It gets in your blood and stays there.

Posted: Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 7:19 am
Filed under: Winery Adventures
Comments (0)

Our next “must stop visit” is to Sobon Estate and Shenandoah Vineyards, located in Amador County.  Both are owned by Leon and Shirley Sobon.  Once again, the next generation is the main force in carrying on what Leon and Shirley began.  Each winery has its own personality and style of wine.

Sobon Estate (www.SobonWine.com) is the oldest winery in the foothills, originally D’Augostini Winery, founded in 1856, it was purchased by Leon and Shirley as their 30th anniversary gift.   Sobon Estate is a registered landmark and boasts a museum of wine and farm antiquities.  Some of the wines we tasted:

Posted: Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Filed under: Winery Adventures
Comments (1)

We never miss the opportunity to visit at least some (depends on time) of our favorite wineries in the Sierra Foothills when we are in Sacramento.  There are so many.  The foothills are only about 45 minutes away from Sacramento and have some truly excellent wines.

Posted: Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Filed under: Winery Adventures
Comments (0)

Once again it is 8:30 a.m. and we know what we are judging.  The first flight will be 36 2006 vintage Chardonnays and the second flight will be 37 2005 Chardonnays.  The procedure, of course, is the same, using the Peterson method, as described earlier, for these two flights.  After concluding and discussing our results, we discover that we have awarded one more double gold medal, for a total of 3 from our panel. 

Posted: Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 5:00 am
Filed under: Judging
Comments (0)

All wines at wine competitions are judged blind.  In other words, the judges never see the bottles as they are staged in another location where judges are not allowed.  In the case of the California State Competition, it is actually another building.  This ensures that there is no preferential treatment given to any brand.  The wines are poured into numbered glasses and placed on carts to be transported to our building.  The numbers on the glasses must correspond to the numbers on our judging sheets, of course.

Posted: Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 5:00 am
Filed under: Judging
Comments (0)