North Sierra Wine Trail Day I – Long Creek Winery and Quilici Vineyards

So, today my husband and I went to four wineries on the North Sierra Wine Trail. It stretches from Oroville, CA to Oregon Hill, CA. We toured and tasted at four wineries: Long Creek Winery, Quilici, Grey Fox, and finally Hickman Family. I can definitely vouch that the last two wineries on our tour were outstanding, and they should not be overlooked by those who love wine.

Long Creek Winery(with two brand new releases from the Vaquero brand)

Long Creek Winery is an interesting brand. They were offering the wines from their tasting for only $10 per bottle. That’s not too shabby a deal, if you’re looking for wine made by a winery that takes sustainability seriously. The entire winery and vineyard is solar powered. They cool the barrel room by using water.  While to us, the wines showcased by Long Creek were quite light, the chicken they served was phenomenal, and the winery did appear to be popular. Wine by wine, here was our tasting:

1. Vaquero 2011 Grenache Rose – Historically, I’m not too much a fan of rose wines. I find a lot of the too weak to really do justice to the grape used in producing the wine. Let’s back up for a moment. A couple weeks ago, my husband and I went to a tasting at Bertagna Son Kissed Vineyards where they had a rose. It was the first rose where I turned to him and said, “We have to buy this!” While we did not buy this wine today, we thought it was a very decent rose wine. It was dry with a hint of rosemary. It definitely stood out from the other wines. We were not surprised to find that the same vintners crafted this wine as had crafted the Bertagna wine.

1. Long Creek 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon – The first thing we noticed about this wine was that it was light and extremely fruit forward. There were sour cherry overtones, and it was quite light for a Cab Sauv. For those who are fans, it makes a very easy drinking wine.
2. Long Creek 2010 Sangiovese – This was also very light and fruit forward. It had overtones of blackberry. Like the Long Crek Cab Sauv, it was quite dry.
3. Long Creek 2010 Zinfandel – The Zin was surprisingly dry. At first taste, there were strong honey overtones. It was peppered with paprika and some melon/cantaloupe undertones.
4. Long Creek 2010 Barbera – This wine was disjointed. I really wanted to like it. It wanted to be bold with a fruit-forward approach, however, it left me wondering why it was so light when the grapes want to be bold.
5. Vaquero Petite Sirah – This was the second of the wines crafted with sister winery Bertagna Son Kissed Vineyards. This was a robust, fine wine with clove and vanilla flavors. Had we not recently bought some of the wines from Bertagna, we would have been tempted by this.

Quilici Vineyards

The first plot of Quilici Vineyards was planted in 1998. Gary Quilici had been making wine as a hobby for 28 years. The first wine was produced by the vineyard in 2001. While the wines produced by this vineyard are considered by some to be quite nice, we found them, as a whole, quite sweet and “jammy.” We did, however think the cheesy garlic bread was absolutely divine here. Here’s a rundown of what we tasted.

1. 2006 Sangiovese  – this wine was spicy but very sweet. It was deep and dark. Of the wines we tasted here, I believe this and the ’05 Cab Sauv were the strongest.
2. 2006 Barbara  – this wine had strong undertones of cloves and vanilla, and even some tobacco. However, at the same time, it was like drinking jam that had undertones of cloves, vanilla, and tobacco.
3. 2006 Syrah – This wine was quite sweet and had a mandarin orange finish. I was surprised by how citrus-filled this particular red was.
4. 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon – This wine had a nose that was filled with sourdough bread overtones. Upon tasting it, it was very sweet, but still had the sourdough theme throughout.
5. 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon – This was the best of the wines we tasted that were produced by Quilici Vineyards. It had cloves and a cigar box feel, and it was more dry than the others. However, the wine still had that jam aftertaste that made it a bit too sweet for our personal preferences.

While we did not purchase wines at these two vineyards, the next two vineyards did excite us a good bit. I will write my impressions of Grey Fox and Hickman Family Vineyards tomorrow.

If you were on the wine trail, what wines did you think were good? What have been your impressions thus far?