The lengths that some people will go to for a taste of wine. Sometimes it’s even worth it. Such was the case when I finally reached Tahoe Ridge Winery on a blazing hot summer afternoon.

Tahoe Ridge is anamoly, a wine oasis backed into a crease in the Sierra Nevada Mountains by high desert country. After a 45-minute drive on Nevada Highway 395 in triple-digit heat, I was ready for a nice cool glass of wine (truth be told, I had the air conditioning on full blast and never sweat a bead).

The winery tasting room, located about 12 miles southwest of Carson City (Nevada’s Capitol), blends into the storefronts in the tiny hamlet of Genoa. Just a speck on the map, Genoa is Nevada’s first permanent settlement, established when the west was young, way back in 1851. Enough trivia.

I’d managed to cut it close that afternoon, sticking my head in front door of the tasting room about 15 minutes before closing. Friendly owner Rick Halbardier welcomed me anyway.

We introduced ourselves, and being the inquistive-reporter type that I am, I immediately started harvesting info for this story, while simultaneously sipping the samples lined up on the counter (hey, it’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it!).

As luck would have it, I’d happened on the only commercial winery in Nevada that grows its own grapes. Halbardier explained that Tahoe Ridge produced the first commerical wine in state’s history from Nevada-grown grapes in 2001 and built its first full production commercial winery in 2005.

“Well, what’s so hot about growing wine grapes in Nevada,” I asked the pioneering winemaker. There are only four microclimates in the Nevada, according to Halbardier. Hot, cold, extreme hot, and extreme cold. “Chardonnay vines die when the temperture dips to -5°F,” he explained.

It’s a good thing, then, that the University of Cornell University developed the Chardenel, a grape good to -20ºF. Chardonel is a late ripening white wine grape distinguished by it superior wine quality combined with high productivity and cold hardness superior to its acclaimed parent, Chardonnay, according to the Department of Food Science at the Univeristy of Arkansas (Fayetteville). 

It had better be a stubbornly strong speciman. The winters can be mighty cold in Genoa and the summers so hot that frying an egg on the sidewalk is a real option. Yet the hardy Chardonnay, Semillon, Riesling, Lemberger grapes that Halbardier and his university buddies have developed in vineyards around the Silver State perservere.

What’s even better, Tahoe Ridge manages to transform them into good wine. While I wasn’t crazy about the Sauvignon Blanc that Halbardier served me, I liked the 2004 Rubicon Point Red Table Wine and 2005 Emerald Point White Table Wine (50% Chardonay and 50% Semillon) well enough to have bottles shipped home to Oregon. The Tahoe Ridge web site describes the Rubicon as having ”wonderful flavors of blackberry, cinnamon, clove, rose, green olvie and black pepper.” While I’m not sure that my taste buds sifted out all of those spices, this red was still a nice treat. It’s a blend of 52% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Syrah, 10% Malbec, 5% Cabernet Franc, 5% Merlot, 5% Petite Verdot and 4% Petite Sirah.

The Emerald Point, a blend of 50% Chardonnary and 50% Semillon, ”has wonderful flavors of melon, butter, oak, lemon, honey and hazelnut,” according to www.tahoeridge.com. It’s a nice refreshing sip on a hot summer afternoon.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. As I hurried back to Reno to catch my flight home, thirst and curiosity quenched, I vowed to revisit Tahoe Ridge the next time that I’m in Northern Nevada. I’d recommend it to anyone with a little time on his/her hands looking for a turn in fortune after a long weekend wrestling with one armed bandits.

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