Judges get the glory at a wine competition, but if not for volunteers – 20 at Saturday’s Amador County Fair – judges well might starve and go thirsty. As the judging wrapped up, here are a few of the volunteers to gather to toast the results.
Jeff Runquist, Mike Roser, take a bow. Saturday, they reaffirmed their stature as two of Amador County’s more accomplished winemakers. At the Amador County Fair commercial wine competition in Plymouth, which drew about 300 entries, they were responsible for seven of the competition’s 10 top awards.
Jeff Runquist Wines was declared the competition’s Sierra Foothills Winery of the Year on the strength of the brand’s overall showing. Each of the 17 wines the winery entered won at least a bronze medal, and three of them won three of the competition’s top 10 honors: The strapping yet silken Jeff Runquist Wines 2021 Amador County Dick Cooper Vineyard Barbera ($34) was declared the best interpretation of the varietal from Amador County, where Barbera has been growing in prominence in recent years; the appropriately rich, Port-inspired Jeff Runquist Wines 2021 Amador County Peroni Ranch Estate “Sisney” (price not listed on winery’s website) was named the best dessert wine; and the easy-going and refreshing Jeff Runquist Wines 2022 Amador County Fox Creek Vineyard Rosé of Sangiovese ($24) was elected the best pink wine.
Mike Roser was responsible for the competition’s overall Best of Show wine, the brash and animated Cooper Vineyards 2019 Amador County Estate
“Sangio Bello” ($46), made with the Brunello clone of Sangiovese. The “Sangio Bello” also was named best red wine and best Amador County Italian-inspired wine.
Other high awards went to the beefy, smoky and spicy Helwig Winery 2018 Amador County Shenandoah Valley Frenchman’s Creek Syrah ($34) as best Amador County Rhone-inspired varietal wine; the forthright Drytown Cellars 2020 Amador County Zinfandel ($21) as best Amador County Zinfandel; and the peachy, spicy and astonishingly persistent Casino Mine Ranch 2021 Amador County Shenandoah Valley Estate Vermentino ($26) as best white wine.
An aside concerning Vermentino: Winemakers along the Sierra Foothills have been stymied for decades in coming up with a white wine to accommodate the expectations of tasting-room visitors who feel that their tour isn’t complete without finding a pleasing Chardonnay. The problem along the foothills is that it is too hot and arid to yield a head-turning Chardonnay, with only a rare exception here and there. For a long time, foothill vintners thought Sauvignon Blanc would fill that gap, and it does fairly well in the region, though not often with the assurance and excitement it generates when grown in many other regions, from France to New Zealand.
These days, however, several other white wines are generating buzz along the foothills, but beyond the area they aren’t drawing much attention, largely because they are relatively unknown on the world wine stage. I’m thinking Semillon, Roussanne, Viognier, Verdelho, Marsanne, Arinto and most especially Vermentino.
The very first round for the panel on which I sat at Amador on Saturday was Vermentino. I was excited, but surprised that only three entries were in the class. Our best of class, and the only entry to receive a double-gold medal, meaning all judges concurred that it deserved gold, was the 2021 from Casino Mine Ranch, ultimately the best white wine in the judging.
The others also were commendable – the exceptionally fragrant, sprightly and dry Wilderotter Vineyard 2022 Shenandoah Valley Vermentino ($27), which got a gold medal, and the full-bodied and embracing Starfield 2022 El Dorado Estate Vermentino (not listed on website), which got a silver medal. The takeaway: If you venture into the foothills for a day of wine tasting, and want to find a white wine with which to stock the refrigerator for summer entertaining, look for Vermentino.
In March, I raved here about the Cooper Vineyards 2019 Amador County Shenandoah Valley St. Peter’s Church Zinfandel ($41), truly one of the more expressive, balanced and layered representatives of Zinfandel I have tasted in recent times. Our panel at Amador was assigned several flights of Zinfandel. They were tasted blind, meaning we knew nothing of each entry other than varietal and vintage. Thus, in now reviewing the revealed results I was surprised to see that one of the entries we were assigned was the St. Peter’s, which we gave a bronze medal, though I voted silver.
What to make of this inconsistency? Not sure, but it could be bottle variation, though not likely. Could be palate fatigue, though the workload at the Amador competition is light compared with many other competitions, so I don’t think that was in play. It could be that the wine tasted just before the St. Peter’s was unusually hefty and concentrated, thus distracting from the nuances of the St. Peter’s, and in retrospect my notes indicate that could be a factor. I am perplexed, and look forward to revisiting the St. Peter’s before long.
Our panel judged 23 of the 46 Zinfandels with more than 14 percent alcohol, the biggest class in the competition, recognition that big and brawny Zinfandel is the signature wine of the Sierra foothills. As a group, the Zinfandels we tasted, however, were not particularly enthralling. We didn’t find a single double-gold entry, meaning that none of the golds were a consensus among all the judges on our panel. The Zinfandel ultimately judged the best in the show, the Drytown Cellars, came from the panel that judged the other half of the entries with more than 14.5 percent alcohol.
Why didn’t more of them excel? While some showed the sunny boysenberry fruit, peppery spice and revitalizing acidity for which foothill Zinfandel is celebrated at its most expressive, too many were listless, blowsy with alcohol, lacking in personality, overly ripe, sappy, blunt. Most were from 2020 and 2021, drought years also marked by wildland fires whose smoke could have hastened or marred the harvest, thereby affecting the ultimate expression of wines for those years.
That said, other personal favorites from among the Zinfandels we tasted were the flamboyant, spicy and exceptionally long Ursa Vineyards 2019 Sierra Foothills Zinfandel (not listed on winery website) and the Amador Cellars 2019 Amador County Estate Zinfandel ($32), an alluring study in equilibrium, freshness and spice.
Another personal favorite, and a strong contender for best red wine, was the Ironstone Vineyards 2020 Sierra Foothills Estate Reserve Meritage ($39), a
Cabernet Sauvignon-based Bordeaux blend captivating for its fresh cherry and plum fruit, herbal underscoring and thread of charcoal. Like Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon is a challenging grape to grow in the foothills, but the Ironstone shows that now and then it can be mastered.