Wine, Weddings, Unique Animals & Beautiful Sierra Views At Gold Country’s Saluti Cellars
Besides being known for their California wine, Saluti Cellars is also known for its menagerie of animals ranging from barn cats, chickens, a Clydesdale horse (and others horses) and their Highland Cattle, long haired bovine with bangs like a Lhasa Apso dog. The 15-year-old winery overlooks the Canyon view of gold country’s Pleasant Valley Appellation.
They’re blessed to still be whole after the 2020 Calder fire, the only wildfire to cross the Sierra Nevada mountains. It burned around their valley on its way to Lake Tahoe. Sitting in the patio you can see the charred remains in the distance.
Consequently they haven’t harvested much grape in several years because of smoke taint. You’ll notice a lot of 2018 bottles on their menu.
Winemaker Randy Rossi has owned the property for 26 years. Some of the grape was planted prior to him purchasing the property while another block was planted 16 years ago. All total there are 15 acres of grape. Like many wineries they have a wine dog named Zeus, a Blue Great Dane with wonderful people skills.
After we finished our estate pizza he hoovered around our feet looking for crumbs.
Here’s what we tasted:
2021 Viognier (Hollister grown) $28 ✰+
2021 Chardonnay (stainless) $26 ✰
2018 ’18 Hands’ (Bordeaux style) $34 ✰
2020 Petite Sirah $28 ✰+
2020 Estate Zinfandel $32 ✰/✰+
2018 Malbec $30 ✰+
2018 Estate Syrah $32 ✰
Clint, our wine host, presented a knowledgeable and well paced tasting with revisits on anything we enjoyed. Their $8 tasting becomes complimentary with each wine bottle purchased. We went home with a Zinfandel and then a Syrah blend named ‘Capice’, or Capeesh in English. Do you understand now?
Some notes on our wine ranking system.
Bill & Erin Hodge write about California Wine, the estates & winemakers producing them and educational information about Vino. Living in California Wine Country provides a front row seat to the places you want to visit the most here in the Golden State.
– -✰ means -What’s next on your list of wines
-✰ means -Not liking it too much
✰ means -We’ll drink this wine, especially if it’s hosted!
✰+ means -You’ve got our attention and we might buy this wine.
✰+ + means -We’re hooked and we’re going to buy this wine.
When you see -✰/✰+ with a slash, it means we disagree.
