Sacramento Bee February 11th, 2009

Wine...and the Spirit

By Chris Macias cmacias@sacbee.com

CHRIS MACIAS cmacias@sacbee.com The tasting room at Narrow Gate Vineyards outside Placerville features mellow lighting and the sounds of Sting.

It's the kind of wine that's meant to be shared with your valentine. But to find this liquefied version of sweet chocolate kisses, you must head to the hills of El Dorado County and toward Narrow Gate Vineyards.

This outing is a perfect day trip for you and your honey – plus a picnic basket if the weather's right. Narrow Gate Vineyards is south of Placerville, about 10 miles from the Missouri Flat Road exit off eastbound Highway 50, where the landscape is flush with stoic pine trees and rolling hills. Yes, it's lovely up here.

We're looking for a bit of romance in a bottle that's known as Chocolate Splash ($25 for a 500-milliliter bottle), a dessert wine made by Narrow Gate Vineyards. So we walk through the heavy wooden doors that lead into Narrow Gate Vineyards' dimly lit tasting room. Mellow songs by Sting are playing on the sound system, and we find Heather Clark of Citrus Heights stocking up on three bottles of Chocolate Splash.

"I'm a chocoholic, so I think it's just great," says Clark. "I think that it's the perfect Valentine's Day wine."

Frank Hildebrand, who owns Narrow Gate Vineyards with his wife, Teena, is responsible for this fortified wine that's meant to seduce your sweet tooth.

He's crafted Chocolate Splash for three vintages, blending grapes used in port wines with a mash of cocoa beans. The resulting wine tastes like a sip of Shari's Berries, with added bursts of blackberry fruit that melt in your mouth, not in your glass.

"Oh, this is a big seller all year round," Hildebrand says of Chocolate Splash. "We usually run out of it, but we doubled our inventory this year so we'd have some on hand during Valentine's Day."

There's also a strong love for the Lord around Narrow Gate Vineyards. You'll find a crucifix fashioned from old grape vines over the door and a small Christian dove on some of Narrow Gate's bottles. The term "narrow gate" refers to Matthew 7:13-14 in the Bible.

"Jesus is talking about how to get to heaven, that you have to take the small path in life," says Hildebrand. "This keeps us focused on the important things in life: God, family. In a small way, this is our ministry. The wine is the conduit."

The Hildebrands are also deeply devoted to El Dorado County's wine country. Frank Hildebrand lived previously in Southern California, where he worked as a regional manager for a fashion accessories company and nurtured a serious love of wine on the side. He bought this El Dorado property in 2000 and opened the tasting room in 2004.

Narrow Gate Vineyards sits 2,600 feet above sea level, more than twice as high as some wineries in neighboring Amador County. While Amador County specializes in zinfandels and Italian varieties, El Dorado County's cooler climate is suited to such Rhone varietals as roussanne, viognier and syrah.

Along with its decadent Chocolate Splash, Narrow Gate Vineyards' flagship wine is its Dunamis Estate. The 2006 vintage ($32) is a robust blend of grenache, syrah and mourvedre that's slightly spicy on the nose with a fat taste of plum and strawberry.

"I'm a loyalist in a lot of ways," Hildebrand says about El Dorado County. "I want to support the farmers from El Dorado. We're all in this together. We're also a cooler climate (than Amador County), so I think we can be more diversified and grow more varietals."

The Narrow Gate Vineyards tasting room doubles as the winery's cellar, so the temperature is a cool 55 to 58 degrees all year. Wood from a horse stable that once marked the property was used to make the tasting room's bar and main door. Christmas lights that hang around the room create a soft and rustic feel.

Back outside, with a bottle of Chocolate Splash in hand, we take a deep breath of the crisp air and consider Valentine's Day plans. Yes, it's all love here at Narrow Gate Vineyards.