If you didn’t know there were wineries in El Dorado County, you aren’t alone. When I told my wine industry friends I was taking a trip to visit El Dorado wineries, their response was, ‘El Dorado? Are there wineries there?’.
I’m a sucker for lesser-known areas that are on the cusp of becoming more widely respected/renowned wine-producing regions and El Dorado County is one of those places.
1. El Dorado Wineries: Edio Vineyards and Delfino Farms
Considered one of the ‘newest’ El Dorado wineries (therefore most locals I spoke with at wineries had not yet tried the wines…), Edio-Delfino is so completely unassuming (in name and recognition) it might easily be missed by visitors. Yet this organic family farm is by no means new to the region, and should be on everyone’s ‘must visit’ list while in El Dorado County.
The farm was started in the 60s by Edio Delfino, an Italian immigrant who had studied agriculture at Cal Poly before moving to St. Helena. Edio and his wife Joan made the move to El Dorado when he took the position of Ag Commissioner in the region.
Today, Edio Vineyards, which had its first vintage in 2018 and opened its winery and tasting room doors in 2020, is run by Edio’s grandchildren, Christine, Peter, Derek, and Ben. Christine, Derek, and Peter all studied at Cal Poly (agriculture, viticulture, and enology)
Edio Vineyards’ wines are fresh, lively, and utterly quaffable. The wines display the restraint exercised in the cellar (Peter uses little to no new oak on most of Edio’s wines), which is intentional.
Sitting down for a tasting at Edio Vineyards, offers visitors a unique hospitality experience, sweeping vineyard and mountain views, and a winning lineup of fresh, balanced, wines made with obvious attention to detail in the vineyard and the cellar.
2. El Dorado Wineries: Skinner Vineyards
The name Skinner has an extensive and storied history in the region dating back to the mid-1800s gold rush era when James Skinner, an immigrant from Scotland, made his way to El Dorado County. James did well enough during the gold rush to buy some land and build Skinner Ranch, where he planted vineyards, started a brandy and wine company, and later also built a large distillery. The town where the ranch was located, now named Rescue, was an unincorporated township called Skinners, CA in the 1860s, and the ‘location’ Skinners still shows up on some maps.
This connection between the Skinner name on a map and Skinner Vineyards’ modern-day origins, began in 2006 when current-day owners Kevin and Kathy Skinner stumbled upon Skinners, CA on a map while driving through the region, and with some time and research, discovered that James Skinner had been Kevin’s great, great, great grandfather. The couple purchased 25 acres of vineyards near where the original Skinner Ranch had stood and started work on re-building the Skinner family legacy (as well as a new winery) in 2007.
Since its advent, the winery has focused on almost all Rhone varietals planting syrah, grenache, mourvedre, petite sirah, carignan, counoise, viognier, marsanne, roussanne, and grenache blanc. The vineyards sit at 1400’ elevation and are farmed sustainably with most Skinner wines being made from estate-grown fruit.
As the winery has grown in stature, it’s also attracted talented people looking for an opportunity to come back home to El Dorado County and make their mark in the local wine industry, such as Director of Winemaking, Adam Smith. Adam grew up in the region but cut his teeth and built his winemaking career in cellars in wine regions around the world such as the Willamette Valley, New Zealand, and the Sonoma Coast.
Having made wine for renowned and cult wine brands such as Shea Wine Cellars, Domaine Serene, and Banshee Wines, Adam made the move to Skinner Vineyards in 2018. His winemaking style aligns with the owner Kevin’s desire to make wines that really exhibit not only varietal typicity but that display the characteristics of the vineyards in which they’re grown.
Skinner’s wines display balance, elegance, and subtlety in body and texture achieved through a blend of hands-on painstaking attention to detail in the vineyard, lab, and cellar. They have structure and tension, yet are not overpowered by oak. This winery is one of my favorites in the El Dorado region. I particularly like their grenache blanc, roussanne, and syrahs.
3. El Dorado Wineries: Via Romano Winery
Run by husband and wife duo John Chewning and Leanne Davis, Via Romano is a tribute to John and Leanne’s time in Piedmont and Tuscany where they fell in love with Tuscan and Piedmontese wines as well as to Leanne’s great-grandfather, Papa Romano who immigrated from southern Italy to the U.S. in the early 1900s.
The couple loves Italy so much that they bought a home in Tuscany, and decided to start their own winery in 2017, after three or four years of John experimenting with winemaking for personal consumption and helping out at wineries during harvest. They opted for a property next to a few other tasting rooms and wineries, in an up-and-coming area of Apple Hill, and renovated the barn on the property to create a charming, open, and airy tasting room with a large patio and bocce ball courts.
Via Romano is one of the only El Dorado wineries that focuses on Italian varietal wines and blends, working with a large variety of Italian grapes including vermentino, fiano, friulano, dolcetto, primitivo, sangiovese, barbera, and dolcetto. They have one of the most unique offerings of Italian varietal wines in California.
Visitors can opt to taste indoors or outdoors next to the winery’s bocce courts. The winery also hosts live music evenings on Saturdays as well as Sunday brunches.
4. El Dorado Wineries: David Girard Winery
David Girard is the winery that has set the bar for quality Rhone varietal wines in El Dorado County and is also one of the most widely known El Dorado wineries due to the consistent good press and high ratings that the wines receive. The winery regularly wins awards and accolades for its wines and their prices are some of the highest (per bottle) in the region. The winery and estate are impressive, with a large European-style villa and courtyard with bistro-style seating.