SHENANDOAH VALLEY – The tasting room of Cooper Vineyards on Shenandoah School Road was a little chilly on a recent Saturday morning, which isn't a bad thing since it's also the barrel room for the Amador County winery.

Chill or not, the tasting bar in one corner was a bastion of warmth and cheer, as much for the energy being shared by the tasters and pourers as for the quality wine list.

Scott Newton, an independent database developer from San Francisco, was feeling it. He was intrigued by the lushness of the pinot grigio, a sometimes leaner white, and asked where that feel came from.

"Good question," said one of the servers, a tall, mid-30s guy. "Be right back." He disappeared through a side door.

Maybe a minute later, Mike Roser, the winemaker at Cooper, came bouncing back through that door in work clothes, which meant a T-shirt, shorts and a generous application of grape stains. Roser is a sturdy, lively, very friendly guy. I say this as a dog person: He's like a Labrador retriever in human form, if Labs could make good wine.

Roser told us the silkiness came just from the grapes and the yeast. There wasn't much manipulation of the wine. "Wait," he said, "you gotta try something."

He half jogged out the same door, then came back with a wine thief – that's the long, plastic turkey-baster-looking tool without the bulb that "steals" wine from barrels. Roser went over to a barrel of not-ready-yet pinot grigio, pulled the plug, dipped in the thief and poured a couple tastes of the infant wine into glasses for Scott and for me.

"Wow," Scott said.

"Wow," I said.

"I know," Roser said.

Its taste was full of bananas and pineapple. Huge on the banana, but still fresh and clean like a pinot grigio.

"I hope that stays in there," Roser said. "It'll be months before we bottle it."

Where did all that come from? we asked.

"It's the grapes," Roser said. "Isn't it great?"

We talked more, then Scott bought a bottle of wine. Roser scouted around for the right pen, ducked out, came back with a gold one and signed the bottle. As we were walking back to the car, looking at the vineyards and rolling hills around us, we were both amped and a little giggly from Roser's energy.

"OK," Scott said, "that never happens in Napa."

I give you the joys of foothill wine country. Lots of good wine, loads of great scenery, and, very often, a personal connection to some very cool people involved with the wine. You'd almost have to hide on some weekends if you wanted to avoid meeting a winemaker or owner.

This is not any kind of Napa bashing. Scott loves Napa and Napa wine. So do I. Napa is the beating heart of America's wine industry and one of the great regions on the planet. But it's also very different, and far more grown up, than the foothills. Amador's Shenandoah Valley gets compared a lot to the way Napa was decades ago.

This recent expedition to Amador was an experiment. Scott is my buddy and a wine guy of the best sort. He's an amateur with a good palate and an affection for the whole world of wine, from the vineyards and the tasting rooms to the glass on a dinner table. He gets excited about new wines and places, and is a dedicated anti-snob.

But Scott had never been to Amador County. He knew some of the wines but not the places, so off we went, through Shenandoah Valley, following his wine nose and expectations. I just held the map.

What was he expecting, I asked when we were driving up Highway 16 before we got there.

"I'm thinking it's very rural," he said. "I'm visualizing dusty back roads and patches of gnarly old zin vines, the free-standing ones that look like a little, grizzled army standing in formation. And I'm hoping for a couple really eccentric places."

He wasn't entirely off the mark. The foundation of Amador wine may be grizzled old zinfandel vines, and there is certainly a healthy share of eccentricity. But a lot of the winery buildings have an almost shiny newness, which is a testament to the growing popularity of the region. Plus the roads are paved.

Call The Bee's Rick Kushman, (916) 321-1187. Listen to him Thursdays at 8:40 a.m. on NewsTalk 1530 (KFBK) and 8:50 a.m. on Armstrong & Getty, Talk 650 KSTE.