nevada city winery

Looking for a way to learn about Nevada City? Whether you’re a local, a first time visitor, or a regular in town, a food tour is a great way to learn about the history of Nevada City, try the different restaurants, and feel truly immersed in the town. Eric and Lisa have a food tour business, Local Roots Food Tours, where they take patrons on a tour of the town, while incorporating food and history. Eric and Lisa are locals who live in Grass Valley and started doing food tours in Sacramento. They saw how successful it was down there, that they decided to expand their business to Nevada City.

I joined in on Eric’s tour last weekend and learned so much about the place I call my hometown! The tour meets at Calahan Park, then heads over to Cafe Mekka. Cory, the owner, gave each person on the tour a taste of three of his favorite coffees. He also talked about where he gets his coffee, which is from Temple Coffee Roasters out of Sacramento, (we buy our coffee from him, so if you stay with us, you can taste some of the delicious Temple coffee!) and why he prefers it over other roasters.

Eric then took us over to the National Hotel where he talked about the history of the hotel and its significance of the town and the Gold Rush. We then went to Lefty’s Grill where we tried their delicious Italian Butcher pizza. Lefty’s has won awards for their Napa Style Pizza, which has a balsamic drizzle over pears, gorgonzola, mozzarella, olive oil, and fresh herbs. Their flat bread pizzas are all grilled in the pizza oven.

The tour moved on to Nevada City Winery, and on the way Eric talked about the Powell House which has just been recently remodeled. Each of the patrons on the tour were welcome to try the many different kinds of wine that Nevada City Winery offers. While at the tasting room, we were also offered to try Calolea Meyer Lemon Olive Oil and their Traditional Balsamic Vinegar. (Interested more about the wine at Nevada City Winery? Read my blog about the day I watched them press the grapes HERE.)

Once we left Nevada City Winery (which took much coaxing!), Eric talked about the history of the Miners Foundry. We then headed up to Elevensies where we got to try both sweet (Pumpkin Pie) and savory (The Petey Pie) crepes. (Read my blog from when Elevensies first opened, HERE.) While everyone was munching on their crepes, Eric led us up to our place, where everyone got a brief tour of the Broad Street Inn. We headed back downtown and enjoyed some delicious homemade treats from the Nevada City Chocolate Shoppe. They gave us samples of their famous Gold Miners’ Delight and a pecan turtle. After everyone finished–and after a few bought some fudge–we headed over to Sopa Thai. They brought out a few of their most popular dishes, which were all big hits.

We were running short on time so we didn’t go up Coyote Street. We then went to Deer Creek Inn where we were offered yummy homemade cookies. The tour then ended at the Stonehouse. The tour was 3 hours long, but went by very quickly. Patrons leave full of delicious food and a good idea of places they would like to return to. We highly recommend going on this tour whether you know the town like the back of your hand or it’s your first visit to Nevada City! Don’t forget about their food tour in Sacramento too!

For more photos from the tour, check out our Flickr page HERE.

Read their awesome reviews on TripAdvisor or write a review if you loved your tour!

Have you ever stopped to think about the work put into the making of your glass of wine? Today when I was downtown, I saw the staff at Nevada City Winery work on one of the first steps of winemaking. The grapes came from a vineyard in Clarksburg, CA. The grapes are white grapes and were being made into Chardonnay. Although you can grow grapes to make Chardonnay in Nevada County, it is a little too warm, according to someone from Sierra Starr Winery who was waiting to pick up his grapes. He explained the process to me. It starts with a bin containing just under one ton, or 2,000 pounds, of grapes. The grapes are slowly dumped into a hopper where the stems and leaves are removed. From there, they fall into a crusher where the juicing process begins. The juice that the grapes make is called must. It contains the skins and isn’t filtered, so it’s pretty thick. The must is pushed to the last step, the press, where the skins are removed and the must is filtered. The product is moved inside where they begin to ferment it. Mark, the very experienced winemaker for Nevada City Winery, was outside helping with this process. If you would like to watch this in action, you can see it all from the deck at Nevada City Winery. If you want to taste the end product, both Sierra Starr and Nevada City Winery uses these grapes to create Chardonnay. Click on the photos below to view them larger or visit our Flickr to see them.