El Dorado County Continued...   Two other wineries of note from that period were the Fossati-Lombardi Winery, established in the 1850s at the site of the Boeger Winery on Carson Road, and the Watkins Winery near Shingle Springs, which may be one of the first commercial wineries in Northern California.

As the gold rush was dying out about 1890 so was the wine industry. By the end of prohibition the wineries were gone and there were very few vineyards left that were being maintained. Most were being replanted with much more lucrative crops, like apples, cherries and pears.

This all changed in the early 1970s when Greg Boeger, a third generation winemaker from the Napa valley, realized the area's potential and bought the old Fossati-Lombardi estate. By 1973 Greg had renovated the old facility back to a fully functioning winery and turned the old winery itself into a tasting room.

Just up Carson Road from Boeger Dick and Leslie Bush planted their first vineyard in 1973. That was followed not long after with a winery facility and tasting room and Madrona Vineyards was born.

About the same time John and Barbara MacCready established the Sierra Vista Winery in the Pleasant Valley area. The MacCreadys were pioneers in recognizing the wonderful match between Rhone varietal grapes and El Dorado County terroir.

The first commercial winery established in the Fair Play area was Fitzpatrick, bonded in 1981. Fitzpatrick is one of a growing number of organic wineries being created in California.

The warm days, the cooling breeze that flows off the mountains at night, the well draining volcanic and granitic soils, a fairly reliable weather pattern combined with the almost limitless number of microclimates found in this region continued to drive an influx of winemakers to the area for the next 30 years. This now translates into a total of 51 wineries that either produce all of their own wines, or have some sort of arrangement with another winery to produce wines under their supervision, often with their own grapes.

This area has expanded their offerings from the original Zinfandels and Bordeaux varietals to Rhone, Italian, Burgundian and now even Spanish style wines as the viticulturalists have had a chance to truly match grapes to the soils and microclimates that support them best. The result has been some truly wonderful, high quality fine wines. Most of the wineries, especially the smaller ones, specialize in a particular style or varietal and we have tried to capture that in the winery's individual web pages for your perusal.

So, as we said when we started this description of the El Dorado County wine region, if you like tasting fine wines while relaxing amongst towering pines and mountain vistas in an atmosphere of friendly people, this may just be a place you want to explore. Take a look through the winery descriptions, pick a few estates that interest you, print an itinerary and start the journey of discovery. You won’t be sorry. Back to Page 1