Your Sacramento Guide: Old Sugar Mill wineries set to do Clarksburg proud - Sacramento Bee

Posted: 06 Aug 2010 12:14 AM PDT

One of the charms of this region is simply enjoying the wealth of good stuff here – stuff, of course, being food, wine, olive oil, cheese and such – and we've got another of those chances to enjoy away.

Specifically, it's the Wine, Cheese and Bread Faire at the Old Sugar Mill on Saturday and Sunday, and you know this is going to be good, because they spelled fair with that extra "e."

The Old Sugar Mill is in Clarksburg, and by the way, if you haven't been there lately and you're any kind of wine lover, or even liker, or just a person who wants to try wine, why not?

There are six wineries inside the strikingly restored building – stand at one end of the main hall and look at how majestic it really is – and those wineries are making some great wine. Yes, Clarksburg wine. That's another whole story, but the point is, yes, very good Clarksburg wine.

Anyway, the wine is just part of it. There will be bread and cheese and chocolates and olive oils and nuts and more, even locally grown spices.

Good stuff, I'm telling ya.

The Old Sugar Mill is about 20 minutes or so from downtown Sacramento, so don't start thinking this is a heart-of-darkness journey deep into the Delta. It's a short freeway journey and a few miles through pretty country.

The fair, excuse me, faire, goes 11 a.m.-5 p.m. both days, and there also will be winery tours, cooking demos, and the eating and drinking of good stuff.

It costs $15. More info at www.oldsugarmill.com or (530) 520-6706.

Placer's Grape Days of Summer

Speaking of less-heralded wine regions, Placer County is strutting its good stuff with a passportlike weekend on Saturday and Sunday featuring vineyard tours, sensory-evaluation practices, food pairings, music and a general party atmosphere.

Plus, naturally, you get to taste wine, everything from current releases to older vintages.

The Placer wineries are often overlooked by people looking to visit wine country, partly because the wineries aren't close together along one strip. But for the wines, and the countryside, they're worth a visit. And finding them is not all that hard. Even I've done it.

The wineries playing along this weekend are Baumbach, Dono dal Cielo, Fawnridge, Casque, Lone Buffalo, Mt. Vernon and Vina Castellano.

They're calling this the Grape Days of Summer, and since there are no extra vowels, I'm not going to poke fun at the name. It costs $25 in advance or $30 on the day, and that price covers both days. You can buy tickets at any of the wineries. For more info, maps and advance tickets, go to www.placerwine.com or call (916) 663-4486.

Celebrate the tomato

One more event about our good stuff. Remember that Sacramento Tomatofest where they're giving $500 to the winners of the contests for largest tomato, smallest tomato and ugliest tomato?

That's Saturday at Town & Country Village. If you've got a staggeringly hideous tomato, now is your moment. (Register your potential champ by 9:30 a.m.).

It's also a daylong party (9 a.m.-4 p.m.) with food, cooking and gardening demonstrations, a chef competition and loads of tomato-related eats. For more info, call (916) 933-4056.

Sacramento's old underground

And here's a cool, distinctively Sacramento thing. A partnership of parks, city, and business folks banded together and recently expanded the Old Sacramento underground tours that now are offered Thursday-Sunday through the end of October.

Remember, a big part of Sacramento was raised up what amounts to one story – give or take a half-buried window or door – in the 1860s and '70s to help the town handle the periodic floods. What's left underground now is a ghost city, the old skeleton of Sacramento from when it began its Gold Rush boom.

Tours gather at the Sacramento History Museum, 101 I St., and take off every 30 minutes, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. They cost $15 for adults, $10 for kids ages 6-17. Details at www.historicoldsac.org or (916) 808-7059.

Reach the Bee's Rick Kushman at (916) 321-1187 or rkushman@sacbee.com. Listen to him Tuesdays at 8:40 a.m. on NewsTalk 1530 (KFBK).

What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com

Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)

Here are some rules of the road:

• Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "report abuse" button to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.

• Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.

• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.

• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand. If you want to discuss an issue with a specific user, click on his profile name and send him a direct message.

• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.

• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.

• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.

• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.

You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "report abuse" button to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.

If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them, but you may ask our staff to retract one of your comments by sending an email to feedback@sacbee.com. Again, make sure you note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us your profile name.

If you choose to use our "reply to comment" feature, you should note that the length of the quoted comment will count against the size limits for your comment.

Five Filters featured article: "Peace Envoy" Blair Gets an Easy Ride in the Independent. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Maps Guides

Friday, August 6, 2010