Madera Wine Trail
Typically I keep my writings here to trail hiking or photography trips. But I had a great time yesterday on a different kind of trail known as the Madera Wine Trail. The wine trail is a collection of wineries in Western Madera County that hold a special event three times a year to encourage public wine tasting. They call it a 'trail' to draw wine tasters down the road to each successive winery. It's like the Sierra Art Trails event held in Eastern Madera County every October except with wine. You can also think of it as a poor man's pub crawl.
What? You meant a RICH man's pub crawl right? I mean, it's wine not beer.
Well, here's the thing: in a pub crawl you would have to pay $6 for each pint of good beer and pretty quickly you'd be out at least $30. On the Madera Wine Trail you pay $15 and you get to try as many wines as you want. Maybe you could call it a thinking man's pub crawl as it is certainly a more refined experience.
Before I go any farther let me say that although I enjoyed the experience I can share with you some of my observations that might help you narrow down your list of stops if you decide to do the trail in February and don't have time to visit all 8 Vintners.
I should also warn you I am not a wine connoisseur. In fact, I am a wine moron. So if you are looking for details like what kind of nose a bottle of wine has, whether it has mocha and raspberry accents, or whether it will go well with orange roughy and spicy asparagus stir fry, stop right here and go back to google. If you think there is more to a wine tour than aroma and palate, read on.
We started on the wine trail around 11:30 on Saturday (Nov. 11) and travelled straight to Ficklin Vineyards on road 30 off Avenue 7. On the way in we passed a small building made of adobe bricks like the ones you'd use for pavers. I wondered aloud how long that building would last (I've seen those yards where the mortar between pavers is sticks out farther than the bricks as a result of differential erosion). My mother assured me if it was good enough for the missions it would probably do for the winery building. Later I found out that the building was constructed sixty years ago from hand-made adobe bricks - not the landscaping stuff. Why do Moms have to be right all the time?
Other buildings at Ficklin are covered floor to roof in some type of vine (not grape) that lends an old world feel. The volunteers and employees at Ficklin were quick to welcome us and give us tips such as eating a bit of cheese to 'open the palate'. The first wine we tasted is one I must confess a bias for the - the Tawny Port. It's a favorite for my Dad and so I couldn't be the most objective judge of its quality. If you don't know Port it is a sweet dark dessert wine in which brandy has been applied to prematurely arrest fermentation leaving a high sugar content, an exceptionally fruity flavor and high alcohol content. The brandy lends it a belly-warming quality. If you are the type of person who doesn't like things 'too sweet' then port is probably not the wine for you.
What really shined about the Ficklin visit was the layout. Guests were invited to follow a circuitous path through the storage rooms, machinery and outer corridors to get a feel for the operation. Each tasting station was in a different area. Because the tasting was spread out it was easy to get individual attention from the servers. It made the tour feel bigger and cozier at the same time. One of the first stops was the storage rooms where hundreds of antique casks were holding the very slowly breathing port. The impressive craftsmanship, wear and size of the wood barrels filled me with a sense of living history. A volunteer explained how the new batches of port on the third level were gradually removed down into the lower level barrels to replace the amounts pored from the bottom level for bottling. The result is that the Old Vine Tinta Port contains some wine from the original crush in the 1940's. The volunteer served us the Tinta in the building where it is aged and his enthusiasm for the process was infectious. We moved on to try a new lighter Port and several other wines all of which I enjoyed. The final building is a large wherehouse where foods were served. A chocolatier (Chocolate Occasions) offered samples of hand made candies including an orange chocolate truffle that inspired me to buy a couple to bring home. Dug-Out cookies was also in attendance and there's no way I would pass up a free tea cake cookie. The boy scouts also offered a tri-tip lunch for fund raising.
At the end of our Ficklin visit I felt like the day was already a success.
Next on the list was the Pacific Crest Winery on Avenue 9. I'd direct you to their website but their domain has expired. We couldn't get into the main parking lot because a tour bus had parked in the driveway. After parking off to the side of the building, the first thing we noticed was the tile on the front of the building was set on a concrete backing that was left uncovered on the side. Picky I know, but it gave an unfinished feel to the facade of the building. We walked in and it felt we were in the small living room of a personal residence. There wasn't anyone to greet people either outside or inside the tasting room. So we walked up to the bar where wines were lined up and two pourers stood. I tried to engage the pourer but he was all business. I'm not sure if smiling was in his repertoire. I gave the Merlot a shot and tried a sip of a couple of other varietals. The wine was okay but nothing that would interest me in a purchase. I decided to try a few of the items in the nice spread of food and it was really good. There were shrimp, pasta, antipasto and cold cuts. We stepped outside to see if we could get a look at the actual vintner operations as we had at Ficklin and a polite young man offered to show us around but warned us that operations were down for the season and there wasn't much to see. We walked up to the new 'gardens' (a citrus orchard with some really cool wood and metal gates) and the young man shadowed us from a short distance for a while. I'm not sure why but maybe to make sure we didn't make off with anything.
Later I found out the stern barman was the owner of the Pacific Crest Winery.
Our next stop was a short drive away at Birdstone Winery. As we neared the winery I thought 'these guys know how to get the word out'. There were 50 plus cars, a limo and a tour bus and our last stop included 5 cars and a tour bus. We were immediately guided to a parking spot and welcomed by a greeter who guided us to all of the wine and food offerings available before we even got out of the parking lot. He was the kind of guy who could sell ice to an eskimo and I mean that in a good way. A flamenco-classical guitar performer really set the mood for a bustling crowd in the large tasting room. I tried the Merlot again to try and stay consistent for comparison sake. I also had a sip of the Cabrenet and Muscat. The Merlot was decent and a bit dryer than the last few I had tried. The Cab was pretty bad and the Muscat was passable.
We had a good lunch that was a fund raiser for the Golden Valley School District and tried some gourmet cheeses from Fiscalini. The Horse Feathers cheese spread with horseradish, San Joaquin Gold and Bandaged Wrapped Aged Cheddar were all excellent. The latter two were hard cheeses with subtle flavors and I bought some of the aged cheddar which you can't really compare to a standard store-bought American cheddar - it's a completely different animal. They also had an olive vendor which I didn't check out. I wasn't too impressed with the wine but the atmosphere was great at the Birdstone winery which would account for its popularity. This was the first anniversary of the winery. Given their attention to detail I think the wines will only improve in future vintages. And maybe if I knew anything about wine I would give them a more favorable review.
One thing we realized after a few stops was that we should have saved Ficklin for last as the dessert wines have such a sweet rich flavor they kind of ruin you for the more subtle table wines.
I can't give you my full impression of the Oak Hollow Winery because I didn't try the wine! There is only so much wine I can try in one day and I had to take a break. My parents did though and they weren't overly impressed with the tasting. I can tell you they have also let their web domain expire, so no link to check out. But the interior was a bit of a sterile atmosphere. Impressive from a food production point of view but not a great event ambience I'm afraid.
Our next stop was Quady Winery which was another dessert wine stop. The architecture was impressive and the music, food, outdoor cigar area and other touches made it a popular stop. The first room we hit was the port wine room. The ports we tried were excellent and there were several others we didn't try that were part of a special tasting for an additional fee. We moved on to the apertif ('French Kiss') made of sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, ice and bit of orange zest which was unexpectedly a favorite of the tour for us. We tried a table wine called Visao which I really enjoyed and would have purchased but for the next wine I tried which stole my heart: Elysium. As the name suggests it is a heavenly wine and it is made from Black Muscat grapes. It was a little tough to choose between the sweet concoctions including Essensia, Electra (both of which I have tried before), Red Electra and the Elysium but the latter edged out the competition and I am really looking forward to opening that bottle - maybe after Thanksgiving dinner.
Our next stop was the Mariposa Wine Company off of road 21 North of Madera. Again the wines following a dessert wine stop were at somewhat of a disadvantage. But I did enjoy the Yosemite View Merlot. And the Yosemite View label was the best graphic design on any of the labels we saw. I was hoping they would have a t-shirt of the label I could purchase. The interior design of the tasting room was on a par above all of the other locations we visited on the tour. And the servers were very friendly. I wanted to take a run at the Carmichael Sangiovese offered in the wherehouse but the server there seemed more interested in flirting with women than pouring for men. Can't say I blame him.
We finished the day at Chateau Lasgoity (pronounced Laz- goyty). By the end of the day I think everyone was well liquored and in a great mood. At least it seemed that way at the Chateau tasting room where everyone was in good spirits including the Black Lab with a big Newfoundland face who layed down in the middle of the crowd to ensure attention. I purchased a Syrah which was my favorite non-dessert wine of the tour. Afterwards we checked out the noisy bird display outside with beautiful Lories and Macaws.
So after reviewing all of our experiences of the tour I would give the following recommendations to others:
1. Save Ficklin and Quady for last as the dessert wines would be a good choice for the end of the day. However if you only have time for one or two stops do these!
2. If you can't visit all the wineries you could easily skip Pacific Crest and Oak Hollow due to a lack of ambience and interpretive information. Just my uneducated opinion.
3. Don't try to visit Golden Valley Wine. It's a bulk seller of grape juice and doesn't have a tasting room or a tour. In fact it isn't open to the public at all. Why is it listed on the wine trail? GOOD QUESTION!
4. Overall we had a great time and I would recommend it to anyone over 21 years of age. I am planning to go back next year, visit all of the wineries and try more of the wines.
5. If you can, get a designated driver whether it be a friend, family member or hired driver (such as in a bus tour or limo). If you can't get one you'll have to limit yourself to a few very tiny portions and take in a lot of food and water.
If you had a different experience of the tour please leave a comment.
What? You meant a RICH man's pub crawl right? I mean, it's wine not beer.
Well, here's the thing: in a pub crawl you would have to pay $6 for each pint of good beer and pretty quickly you'd be out at least $30. On the Madera Wine Trail you pay $15 and you get to try as many wines as you want. Maybe you could call it a thinking man's pub crawl as it is certainly a more refined experience.
Before I go any farther let me say that although I enjoyed the experience I can share with you some of my observations that might help you narrow down your list of stops if you decide to do the trail in February and don't have time to visit all 8 Vintners.
I should also warn you I am not a wine connoisseur. In fact, I am a wine moron. So if you are looking for details like what kind of nose a bottle of wine has, whether it has mocha and raspberry accents, or whether it will go well with orange roughy and spicy asparagus stir fry, stop right here and go back to google. If you think there is more to a wine tour than aroma and palate, read on.
We started on the wine trail around 11:30 on Saturday (Nov. 11) and travelled straight to Ficklin Vineyards on road 30 off Avenue 7. On the way in we passed a small building made of adobe bricks like the ones you'd use for pavers. I wondered aloud how long that building would last (I've seen those yards where the mortar between pavers is sticks out farther than the bricks as a result of differential erosion). My mother assured me if it was good enough for the missions it would probably do for the winery building. Later I found out that the building was constructed sixty years ago from hand-made adobe bricks - not the landscaping stuff. Why do Moms have to be right all the time?
Other buildings at Ficklin are covered floor to roof in some type of vine (not grape) that lends an old world feel. The volunteers and employees at Ficklin were quick to welcome us and give us tips such as eating a bit of cheese to 'open the palate'. The first wine we tasted is one I must confess a bias for the - the Tawny Port. It's a favorite for my Dad and so I couldn't be the most objective judge of its quality. If you don't know Port it is a sweet dark dessert wine in which brandy has been applied to prematurely arrest fermentation leaving a high sugar content, an exceptionally fruity flavor and high alcohol content. The brandy lends it a belly-warming quality. If you are the type of person who doesn't like things 'too sweet' then port is probably not the wine for you.
What really shined about the Ficklin visit was the layout. Guests were invited to follow a circuitous path through the storage rooms, machinery and outer corridors to get a feel for the operation. Each tasting station was in a different area. Because the tasting was spread out it was easy to get individual attention from the servers. It made the tour feel bigger and cozier at the same time. One of the first stops was the storage rooms where hundreds of antique casks were holding the very slowly breathing port. The impressive craftsmanship, wear and size of the wood barrels filled me with a sense of living history. A volunteer explained how the new batches of port on the third level were gradually removed down into the lower level barrels to replace the amounts pored from the bottom level for bottling. The result is that the Old Vine Tinta Port contains some wine from the original crush in the 1940's. The volunteer served us the Tinta in the building where it is aged and his enthusiasm for the process was infectious. We moved on to try a new lighter Port and several other wines all of which I enjoyed. The final building is a large wherehouse where foods were served. A chocolatier (Chocolate Occasions) offered samples of hand made candies including an orange chocolate truffle that inspired me to buy a couple to bring home. Dug-Out cookies was also in attendance and there's no way I would pass up a free tea cake cookie. The boy scouts also offered a tri-tip lunch for fund raising.
At the end of our Ficklin visit I felt like the day was already a success.
Next on the list was the Pacific Crest Winery on Avenue 9. I'd direct you to their website but their domain has expired. We couldn't get into the main parking lot because a tour bus had parked in the driveway. After parking off to the side of the building, the first thing we noticed was the tile on the front of the building was set on a concrete backing that was left uncovered on the side. Picky I know, but it gave an unfinished feel to the facade of the building. We walked in and it felt we were in the small living room of a personal residence. There wasn't anyone to greet people either outside or inside the tasting room. So we walked up to the bar where wines were lined up and two pourers stood. I tried to engage the pourer but he was all business. I'm not sure if smiling was in his repertoire. I gave the Merlot a shot and tried a sip of a couple of other varietals. The wine was okay but nothing that would interest me in a purchase. I decided to try a few of the items in the nice spread of food and it was really good. There were shrimp, pasta, antipasto and cold cuts. We stepped outside to see if we could get a look at the actual vintner operations as we had at Ficklin and a polite young man offered to show us around but warned us that operations were down for the season and there wasn't much to see. We walked up to the new 'gardens' (a citrus orchard with some really cool wood and metal gates) and the young man shadowed us from a short distance for a while. I'm not sure why but maybe to make sure we didn't make off with anything.
Later I found out the stern barman was the owner of the Pacific Crest Winery.
Our next stop was a short drive away at Birdstone Winery. As we neared the winery I thought 'these guys know how to get the word out'. There were 50 plus cars, a limo and a tour bus and our last stop included 5 cars and a tour bus. We were immediately guided to a parking spot and welcomed by a greeter who guided us to all of the wine and food offerings available before we even got out of the parking lot. He was the kind of guy who could sell ice to an eskimo and I mean that in a good way. A flamenco-classical guitar performer really set the mood for a bustling crowd in the large tasting room. I tried the Merlot again to try and stay consistent for comparison sake. I also had a sip of the Cabrenet and Muscat. The Merlot was decent and a bit dryer than the last few I had tried. The Cab was pretty bad and the Muscat was passable.
We had a good lunch that was a fund raiser for the Golden Valley School District and tried some gourmet cheeses from Fiscalini. The Horse Feathers cheese spread with horseradish, San Joaquin Gold and Bandaged Wrapped Aged Cheddar were all excellent. The latter two were hard cheeses with subtle flavors and I bought some of the aged cheddar which you can't really compare to a standard store-bought American cheddar - it's a completely different animal. They also had an olive vendor which I didn't check out. I wasn't too impressed with the wine but the atmosphere was great at the Birdstone winery which would account for its popularity. This was the first anniversary of the winery. Given their attention to detail I think the wines will only improve in future vintages. And maybe if I knew anything about wine I would give them a more favorable review.
One thing we realized after a few stops was that we should have saved Ficklin for last as the dessert wines have such a sweet rich flavor they kind of ruin you for the more subtle table wines.
I can't give you my full impression of the Oak Hollow Winery because I didn't try the wine! There is only so much wine I can try in one day and I had to take a break. My parents did though and they weren't overly impressed with the tasting. I can tell you they have also let their web domain expire, so no link to check out. But the interior was a bit of a sterile atmosphere. Impressive from a food production point of view but not a great event ambience I'm afraid.
Our next stop was Quady Winery which was another dessert wine stop. The architecture was impressive and the music, food, outdoor cigar area and other touches made it a popular stop. The first room we hit was the port wine room. The ports we tried were excellent and there were several others we didn't try that were part of a special tasting for an additional fee. We moved on to the apertif ('French Kiss') made of sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, ice and bit of orange zest which was unexpectedly a favorite of the tour for us. We tried a table wine called Visao which I really enjoyed and would have purchased but for the next wine I tried which stole my heart: Elysium. As the name suggests it is a heavenly wine and it is made from Black Muscat grapes. It was a little tough to choose between the sweet concoctions including Essensia, Electra (both of which I have tried before), Red Electra and the Elysium but the latter edged out the competition and I am really looking forward to opening that bottle - maybe after Thanksgiving dinner.
Our next stop was the Mariposa Wine Company off of road 21 North of Madera. Again the wines following a dessert wine stop were at somewhat of a disadvantage. But I did enjoy the Yosemite View Merlot. And the Yosemite View label was the best graphic design on any of the labels we saw. I was hoping they would have a t-shirt of the label I could purchase. The interior design of the tasting room was on a par above all of the other locations we visited on the tour. And the servers were very friendly. I wanted to take a run at the Carmichael Sangiovese offered in the wherehouse but the server there seemed more interested in flirting with women than pouring for men. Can't say I blame him.
We finished the day at Chateau Lasgoity (pronounced Laz- goyty). By the end of the day I think everyone was well liquored and in a great mood. At least it seemed that way at the Chateau tasting room where everyone was in good spirits including the Black Lab with a big Newfoundland face who layed down in the middle of the crowd to ensure attention. I purchased a Syrah which was my favorite non-dessert wine of the tour. Afterwards we checked out the noisy bird display outside with beautiful Lories and Macaws.
So after reviewing all of our experiences of the tour I would give the following recommendations to others:
1. Save Ficklin and Quady for last as the dessert wines would be a good choice for the end of the day. However if you only have time for one or two stops do these!
2. If you can't visit all the wineries you could easily skip Pacific Crest and Oak Hollow due to a lack of ambience and interpretive information. Just my uneducated opinion.
3. Don't try to visit Golden Valley Wine. It's a bulk seller of grape juice and doesn't have a tasting room or a tour. In fact it isn't open to the public at all. Why is it listed on the wine trail? GOOD QUESTION!
4. Overall we had a great time and I would recommend it to anyone over 21 years of age. I am planning to go back next year, visit all of the wineries and try more of the wines.
5. If you can, get a designated driver whether it be a friend, family member or hired driver (such as in a bus tour or limo). If you can't get one you'll have to limit yourself to a few very tiny portions and take in a lot of food and water.
If you had a different experience of the tour please leave a comment.
posted by -j- at 6:23 PM
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