FAIR PLAY

Deep in the heart of the Sierra Nevada foothills lies one of the wine world's best kept secrets... Fair Play. Within an hour's drive from Sacramento, you will find over 20 family-owned boutique wineries that take pride in their land and their wines. The wineries range in size from just over one thousand cases produced per year to about thirty thousand cases. The Fair Play wineries are quite small compared to the giant wineries in many other areas.

In the past two decades, the Fair Play area has seen a huge resurgence of agriculture, this time in the form of hundreds of acres of prime vineyards. Within the past fifteen or so years, eight wineries have been built in this area, with more planned in the near future. From the grapes grown in the soils of the Fair Play area, these wineries have been continually producing world-class wines.

Since becoming its own appellation in 2001, Fair Play has developed a reputation for high quality wine grapes that yield deeply flavorful, intense wines from an amazingly diverse range of grape varieties. This diversity is possible because our mountainous terrain brings together many elements necessary for producing excellent grapes and unique wines - climate, soil, elevation and varied exposure.

The Wineries of Fair Play make distinctive white wines from Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Viognier, and delicious red wines from Zinfandel, Barbera, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Petite Sirah. Additionally, miniscule quantities of wonderful wines are made from lesser known varieties grown in this area, and are usually only available from the wineries' tasting rooms.

The Toogood Estate will be our first stop of the day. Toogood offers 10 El Dorado Varietal wines of superb quality, emphasizing intense rich fruit flavors. We will tour the winery's wine cave and enjoy several wines in the underground tasting room.

Then we are off to Fitzpatrick Winery Lodge, Fair Play's oldest winery features a massive hand-crafted log lodge, with spectacular hilltop panoramic views from its five unique bed and breakfast rooms. World class wines made from organically grown grapes. Rated 'One of the Ten Best' wine tasting rooms in Northern California. Enjoy a picnic lunch on their grounds.

After lunch,we are off to Conti Estate/Charles B. Mitchell Vineyards, Conti produces the following five varietals; Sauvignon Blanc, Petite Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. In addition to estate-grown grapes, fruit from within El Dorado County and the surrounding Sierra Foothills is used to make fine hard-crafted wine in the long-standing tradition of this winery.

We are not quite finished yet. We will end the day at Perry Creek Winery, home of ZinMan! We'll sample several more award-winning wines with their bright and intense flavors.

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