Holly’s Hill: Sommelier's choice for white wines

The fourth winery I dragged the sommelier to was Holly's Hill Winery, and let me just say that I was getting a little cold at this time. You may think California is warm, but once you hit the foothills, it's freezing. There was even snow on the ground.

I know I've lived here for a year now, but I'm still in denial and don't want to believe it can be cold -- so part of the reason I was freezing was that I was only wearing two light jackets. But the other reason was because power had gone out in the area so the wineries weren't heated. Good thing there was some wine to warm us up!
El Dorado’s wine area is known for having great Zinfandels, Mourvedres and other reds, but at Holly’s Hill Winery there's something there for the white wine lover.

“These are the first legit white wines I’ve run into,” said Sandford Wragg, sommelier and wine buyer for Tuli Bistro in Sacramento. “They are solid. They are dry. They don’t over power things. I can think of food I can eat with them. Their Roussanne had fruit to it, yet it was still dry.”

Wragg enjoyed both the winery's Roussanne and Viognier. He says Holly’s Hill has a different take on things than some of the other wineries, but their philosophy is similar to Sierra Vista Winery. They both grow Rhone grapes, their wines have low alcohol and they make wine for the dinner table.

Making wine at Holly's Hill since 1999, Winemakers Carrie and Josh Bendick have been able to keep the old world influence while being surrounded by new world winemakers. They say they have done this purposefully.

“We travelled to the Rhone and we travelled to Italy and we really liked their wines -especially in Italy. Their wines are so acidic. When you have them with food it’s just magical,” said Carrie, who is the first female winemaker I've met.

But it’s more than growing the Rhone varietals that make them different. Their winemaking process is also a little different.

“We really noticed that with the Rhone varietals that we couldn’t oak them. When you add new oak to them the whole character of the varietal disappears and you just taste oak. It becomes a generic wine that could be made anywhere. That’s why we decided here to only do neutral oak,” Carrie said.

In addition to not finding any new oak wines, you won’t find Zinfandels, which is unusual for the Sierra Foothills area- because there are Zinfandels everywhere. However, if you remember drinking a Holly’s Hill Zinfandel years ago, you’re not going crazy. They did make them when they first started -- and they won awards for them. So not making them now is almost crazy. I mean, why would you stop making your money-maker wine?

Carrie says they had a good reason. First of all, the Rhone wines they make now are their true passion, and secondly, they don't grow Zinfandel fruit on their estate.

“We had all Rhones planted from the beginning and we thought, 'Why? Why are we buying all this fruit to make zinfandel?'” Carrie said. “We decided to focus on what we could do really well and have more control over the growing cycle.”
Now Carrie and her husband are following their passion, and it’s paying off.

“I think the best thing they are making right now is their white wines. If you took a Sierra Foothills white wine line up, she would come out near the top or maybe even the top,” Wragg said. “I’m a fan of the winemaker and the whites and her philosophy. I’m hoping to see it come out in her reds as well.”