Wineries
Gold Hill Winery & Brewery- Since 1985, Gold Hill Vineyard has been producing award-winning Sierra Foothill premium wines. Founded by owner Hank Battjes, Gold Hill has set a high standard for this small family operated winery. Nestled atop its 50 acre vineyard, the winery overlooks the American River Valley, and the historic gold-mining burg of Coloma.
Specialties of the winery feature Estate Grown Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Barbera and Syrah. Also available are crisp blushes, white blends and the ever delicious Viognier.
Crystal Basin Cellars- Crystal Basin Cellars is a circle of friends who are sharply focused on creating small batches of wines of outstanding quality.Our long-standing, worldclass Sierra Foothill grape sources complement our minimalist, handmade winemaking style to create delicious fruit forward red wines.We make very small batches of the finest wines we can from great fruit. How small are the batches? Sometimes, as little as 50 cases! We like to think that we make wine like Grandma used to make her jams and jellies: We don't add anything and we don't take anything out. We think you can taste this philosophy in every glass of our wine. All of our grapes come from the Sierra Foothills and always will.We don't fine, filter or add any chemicals other than sulfites to our wines. We don't pump our wines, instead we use gravity to move our wines via siphon. We don't over-oak our wines by using too many new oak barrels. We don't use distributors because we like the personal touch with our customers. Our wines really are handmade. We created 1,300 cases in 2003, 1,000 cases in 2004 and 2,000 in 2005.
CBC philosophy- Our philosophy is that we are stewards of the process between great fruit and the bottled product. We do not grow our grapes, instead we have aligned ourselves with producers of great fruit. In this way, we can concentrate on what we do best, loving care for young wines to nurture them into the best tasting wines possible. We truly have a passion for the process of making wine and it shows in our results. We do not fine or filter our wines, as these processes strip out body and flavor and leave commercial grade wines with no soul. We do not treat our wines as chemistry experiments, but prefer to take the natural flavors that Mother Nature has provided right into your glass.
Le Mulet Rouge- Le Mulet Rouge"' vineyard and winery is located in Fiddletown, Amador County, in the picturesque foothills of the Sierra Mountains of eastern California, halfway between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe. Our vineyard and winery are located on Red Mule Road (Rue Mulet Rouge in French). The road is named for the red mules our neighbor raised and used in his cross-country wagon trains. Our land features 2 ponds which attract turkeys, deer, quail, blue heron and an occasional fox and bobcat. We have small-mouth bass in the pond.
Vineyard- 13 acres in Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier were planted in 2004.
Winery - Until our grapes are ready for crushing in 2008, we will continue to use locally grown grapes to make our wines. We pick and crush the grapes ourselves and age the wine in French, Hungarian, and American oak barrels. We currently produce 1000 cases of wine a year, both red and whites.