Amador County – Getting a win on the road is difficult enough for the local football teams, but Amador County vintners won a taste-off during a recent convention in the heart of California’s famed Napa Valley wine country.

Amador County Supervisor Vice Chairman Louis Boitano reported last week that he and Supervisor Ted Novelli (also the California Local Agency Formation Commission Vice President) attended the Cal-LAFCO’s annual convention recently in Napa Valley. Boitano said he and Novelli took samples of Amador County wine from local vintners, for a tasting competition, and an Amador wine took first place in the red wine division. He said it was the second year running that an Amador wine has won an award.

The conference was in Napa, and Novelli said “there wasn’t a lot of applause from Napa” during the announcement of the red wine winner. He said thanks to local winemakers “we were able to beat Napa in Napa on red wine.” Boitano said “somebody edged them out on white wine too.”

The discussion of the board later returned to Amador County wine country, during discussion of Design Review Guidelines, which are being sent back to the Planning Commission for more work, with individual Supervisor comments. Novelli said “what we have in the Shenandoah Valley is very unique, and almost as unique as Napa Valley. He said “everything we have going on in the Shenandoah Valley is just as good as what we have down in Napa Valley.

Boitano said the wineries in Napa find their niche. One was solar power, and they had “photovoltaic pontoons on their wastewater lake.” Another winery’s niche was growing produce and selling it to local Napa restaurants. Supervisor Chairman John Plasse said maybe the Cal-LAFCO Vice President Novelli can get the next state LAFCO conference to be held in Amador County. Novelli said “I would love to work on that.”

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.