Bear
Not!
by Russell Johnson
There is a little cluster
of teddy bears trembling in a corner at the Hanford House in Sutter
Creek, California. "What shall be our fate?" they cry through
their little button mouths. "A few years ago bed and breakfasts
were safe-houses for us. We swung naked from the rafters, we sat on
window sills in our frilly little outfits, we heard laughter as guests
made up `unbearable` puns about us."
Cutesy is out in Sutter
Creek, the gateway to California's "other" wine country. Oriental
antiques and designer olive oil are in. Amador County, in the heart
of Gold Country, has a winemaking tradition that dates back to Gold
Rush days. It is, refreshingly, what the Napa Valley was thirty years
ago...at least for now.
My first trip to the
Napa Valley was in the 70s, when U.S. President Richard Nixon went to
China. As a cub TV reporter, I interviewed Jack Davies, the founder
of Schramsburg, who supplied the bubbly for Nixon’s toasts in the
Great Hall of the People. Davies gave me a bottle from the ceremonial
fizz which I saved for my own ceremonial occasion…the day I got
out of the Army. I was a bit disappointed. It was extremely dry, like
a gin Martini. (Nixon, can’t get rid of him, I thought. He and
his pal Bebe Rebozo were said to have spent afternoons getting blasted
on pitchers of dry Martinis aboard the Presidential yacht).
Davies was charming,
as were many of the winemakers who plied their trade in those days before
the wine country became a theme park. I toasted with Carl Heitz, Hans
Kornell, schmoozed with the Italians, like Louis Foppiano, along the
Hwy 101 corridor.
I still enjoy the Napa
Valley. It still has pockets of tradition and some supurb restaurants
and spas (if you have deep pockets). Driving the Silvarado Trail
in March, when all is clean and green and the wild mustard blooms, rates
as one of earth’s subtle pleasures.
But much of the Napa
Valley has become cloyingly corporate. At two wineries I visited recently,
I was badgered to join a wine club before I had tasted their vintages.
I felt like I was buying a VCR and some greasy salesman was trying to
sell me on an extended warranty. One "associate", who said
he was from LA, allowed me to taste a better vintage and became angry
and intimidating when I didn’t volunteer to buy a case for about
$400. I didn’t like the wine. In fact most of the vintages I tasted
on two recent visits, with prices in the $20 to $40 range, were no better
than the $6 Chilean and Spanish plonk I copiously consume at home.
California's
Other Wine Country
To get a glimpse
of what the Napa Valley was like 20 years ago, pay a visit to Amador
County, in California’s Mother Lode.
The wine industry began in Amador County
150 years ago to lubricate the lifestyles of the gold rushers. Within
twenty years of the discovery of the first nugget in nearby Marshall,
more wineries existed here than in the rest of California. The gold
supplies dried up and so did the country, during Prohibition, and the
industry lay in limbo until the late 1960s. There are now 18 wineries
near Hwy 49, between Placerville and Jackson. None of them is very large
and tastings are often presided over by the winemaker and his family.
Just like the good
old days in the Napa Valley.
Zinfandel is king here,
from some very old vines, along with some Italian varietals such as
Sangiovese and Barbera. The best I tasted was a bottle of Young’s
Vineyard Zinfandel I sampled with an excellent dinner at Zinfandel’s
restaurant in Sutter Creek. The next day my wife to be and I went to
the winery in the Shenandoah Valley. "Closed", read the sign
on the gate. "Out of Wine." Charming, we though, and raided
the local wine shop for all we stuff in our shopping bags.We thought
so much of this tasty vintage that we served it at our wedding. We called
Sharon Young who supplied a few cases from the winery's private stock.
She, by the way, designed the label.
At the end of the valley,
Sobon Estates has a museum with wonderful antiques and good printed
explanations of the winemaking process.
One of he beauties
of this region is that wine isn't its only attraction, it
harbors the history and lore of the Gold Rush. Columbia State Park is
a living museum that re-creates a Gold Rush town of the 1860s.
Sutter Creek is a duded
up version of an Old West town with splendid restorations. The teddy
bear "shoppes" are giving way to the high fashion and oriental
antiques, however. One hopes that it doesn’t become as toney as
the Napa valley, but at least some schlock of the past is gone. Both
the Sutter Creek Inn, which calls itself the oldest B&B west of
the Mississippi, and the Hanford House (teddies removed) are quite
good.
Resources
Hanford
House
Sutter
Creek Inn
Amadornet
Sutter
Creek
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