Milliaire Winery 2005 Calaveras County Ghirardelli Vineyard Heritage Old Vine Zinfandel ($28)

Calaveras County's standing as a wine enclave is established today. But that wasn't the case 30 years ago, when only a few vintners saw potential for wine grapes amid the pines and poison oak.

One was Steve Millier, who was an early winemaker at the pivotal Stevenot Winery in Murphys. For the past 20 years, he's been in charge of winemaking for Ironstone Vineyards, also in Murphys, the Kautz family monument credited with introducing so many wine enthusiasts to Calaveras.

Since 1983, Millier and his wife, Liz, also have had their own winery, Milliaire, housed for nearly two decades in a former Flying A gas station at the east end of Main Street in Murphys. There, Millier specializes in big, dark reds capturing the character of Sierra foothill vineyards that produce the ripe, rich and rugged grapes he favors.

One of those is Ghirardelli Vineyard in hot, low and relatively flat Burson along the western fringes of Calaveras County - an area the Milliers call "Baja Calaveras." The first Ghirardelli on the scene, a Jackson gold miner, bought the vineyard in 1900, and for nearly four decades, he and his heirs shipped grapes to home winemakers in San Francisco.

Today, the 25 acres are still cropped in the "little tree" style favored by Italian traditionalists - and the plot continues to be farmed organically and without irrigation or even frost protection. Those practices, coupled with the area's shallow, well-drained soils, account for yields of only about a ton per acre. "The vines produce very small berries, not the typical large berries of foothill zinfandel," says Millier.

A key to wine quality is picking those grapes at just the right moment, he says: "You almost need to sleep in the vineyard to capture them at peak ripeness. Pick them too soon and they are not ripel; wait an extra day and they become raisins. The window of opportunity can be three to four days, max."

The wine Millier makes with the grapes tends to be dense with jammy fruit. His current release, the Milliaire Winery 2005 Calaveras County Ghirardelli Vineyard Heritage Old Vine Zinfandel, was in a flight I helped judge at this summer's California State Fair commercial wine competition. I thought it a great interpretation of zinfandel, suspecting it was a foothill release by its solid build, ripe fruit, peppery spice and deep earthiness. I lobbied unsuccessfully that it get a gold medal; it ended up with silver.

This fall, I tasted the wine again, finding it agreeably voluptuous, in part for its layered sweetness from the French and American oak in which it was aged. I still liked it, and could picture it as the ideal companion for juicy roast beef on the year-end holiday table.

By the numbers: 15 percent alcohol, 250 cases

Context: Millier likes to smoke pork shoulder with a variety of rubs and a diversity of woods, and has found the Ghirardelli a fine match for whatever variation he does. The wine isn't too big for either grilled free-range organic chicken with lemon and fresh thyme or rosemary, or a vegetarian platter of grilled eggplant, fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil, he's discovered. Though the Ghirardellis of Burson aren't related to the Ghirardellis of chocolate fame, the zinfandel also goes well with chocolate, says Millier.

Availability: Milliaire wines are sold only at the winery and online, www.milliairewinery.com.

More information: The Milliaire tasting room, 276 Main St., Murphys, is open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. daily.

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Long-time wine critic and competition judge Mike Dunne continues his relationship with The Bee as a contributing columnist to the Food & Wine section and www.sacwineregion.com. His wine selections are based solely on open and blind tastings, judging at competitions, and visits to wine regions. Reach him at mikedunne@winegigs.com.