THE COCKTAIL HOUR: Sierra Foothill Wine Sip Off

This week, we're pitting neighbors against each other...Story and Villa Toscano wineries.  Both are located in Plymouth, California, about 2 miles apart from each other in the Shenandoah Valley in the heart of Amador County.

Watch the Video!

Story weighs in with a 2006 Miss Zin.  This is a blend of 50% mission grapes and 50% zinfandel.  Villa Toscano brings it with their 2008 old vine zinfandel.  Both wineries dry farm their zin grapes.  That means no water other than what Mother Nature provides.  Some of these vines go back over 100 years.  The area is intensely hot and dry in the summer, baking these vines and providing small, intensely flavored fruit.  It takes a little extra work to extract it.


The resulting wine is a heavy, jammy, spicy, tasting inky wine.  Done right, it's a sublime experience and holds up well to food with big, bold flavors like the steaks at JD's in nearby Sutter Creek or the smoked jalapeño, bacon wrapped poppers at the Dancing Bear in the historic Plymouth Hotel.


Both wines retail in the $20 range but the wineries will be willing to cut a deal in person.  Story has several six packs that can effectively cut the price in half.  I got a case of the Villa Toscano for $99, bringing their price to about $8.25.


Which one is best?  Watch the video, above.  We declared them a tie but we'd drink the heavy, bold Villa Toscano while sitting in front of a roaring fire on a winter night while the Story wine goes better in an outdoor setting thanks to the lightening effect of the mission grapes in their wine.


Cheers!

Darryl

Copyright 2010 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Climbing Every Mountain for a Costco Run: Carson Valley, Nevada - Part 1

Yes, there are Costcos closer to us. Lodi and Elk Grove are just over a half hour away. Rancho Cordova and Folsom aren't far, either. But we can combine a run to Costco with a quick getaway from the stress of moving by spending the night near Carson City, Nevada, just on the other side of the Sierra Nevada mountains from us.

Sounds simple but this has been the never-ending winter here. Even though I've put off the trip until April, the weather is still calling for heavy snow over the Carson Pass. The day before doesn't look so bad, though, so I book another night in the motel and we leave a day early.

It's rainy, but we make over the nearly 9,000 foot tall summit of the pass before any flakes start to fall.

Passing through a couple of avalanche zones...complete with evidence of earlier slides...is a bit unnerving but we make it through with no mishaps and end up at the Historian Inn in Gardnerville, Nevada, in just over 2 hours from the former gold fields of Amador County, California.

The room is a basic, maybe slightly nicer than basic, motel room with two queen beds. We think these narrow mattresses are more like full size, but we'll go with the flow.

The bathroom is nice and roomy with a roll-in shower.

It's dinner time when we check in, so we head across the street to Sharkey's Casino for a bite in their coffee shop.

It is a very good and cheap prime rib dinner for me...

...pasta Portofino with some large shrimp for Letty...

...and sliders for Tim.

We waste a buck or two playing the penny slots here.

It's a nightcap at the Silver Dollar bar as Tim decides this would be a perfect place for a pub crawl.

He's not wrong. There's the bar we're sitting in now, the Overland Pub across the street, JT Basque, almost next door to this casino, and three more bars between here and the hotel.

We get a couple of shots as we make our way back, then we'll finish up tomorrow for the next, new Cocktail Hour that'll be coming your way.

In the meantime, we'll call it a night and do some sight seeing tomorrow while we're here.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2019 - All Rights Reserved