Weekly Saturday Tasting

Andis Winery &
Painted Fields Wines

Saturday, July 6th
1:00 - 3:00

For this weekend, we are going to explore some great wines from California's Sierra Foothills appellation as well as the nearby Clarksburg appellations. The Sierra Foothills A.V.A. is actually one of the largest in the United States, covering nearly 2.6 million acres. The region lies along the north-western foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range that separates California from the state of Nevada in the east. Vineyards run all the way along this 160-mile (260-km) stretch of mountains, usually at altitudes ranging from 1,000ft to 3,000ft (300–900m) above sea level. The vast, agricultural Central Valley is to the west of the foothills. During the California Gold Rush the Sierra Foothills wine industry was booming, but that dropped off in the depression that followed, and the beginning of Prohibition in 1920 killed off whatever was left. Happily, many of the vineyards throughout the region were simply abandoned rather than ripped out, and vignerons exploring the viticultural potential of the region in the 1970s were rewarded with the discovery of many old vines producing extremely low yields of high quality grapes. Since then, Grape growers have been drawn to the Sierra Foothills in the past 25 years by land prices that are considerably lower than in other grape-growing areas of California. Consumers in turn are attracted to wines that are more modestly priced than those from many coastal regions. For our tasting, we are going to concentrate on the wines from one Winery - Andis Wines, and their secondary label Painted Fields Wines. The Painted Fields Old Vine Zinfandel has been our best selling Zin of the last several years, and led us to enjoy the rest of the winery's top notch bottles. We will taste that Zinfandel Saturday, along with wonderful Sierra Foothills Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Franc done under the Andis label. Rounding out our samples will be a wonderful Chenin Blanc under the Painted Fields label that is grown in the Clarksburg A.V.A., coming from south and east of Sacramento, which while being a lesser known appellation has a top notch reputation for aromatic white wines, with Chenin Blanc leading the charge. We hope you can join us to try some fantastic California wines from regions you may not be familiar with, but will surely love!

Painted Fields Chenin Blanc
Clarksburg, California, 2023

Andis Wines Sauvignon Blanc
Sierra Foothills, California, 2023

Painted Fields 'Old Vine' Zinfandel
Sierra Foothills, California, 2021

Andis Wines Cabernet Franc
Sierra Foothills, California, 2021