This Wine is Toogood

Community Comments

LOOKING BACK, veterinarian Paul Toogood recalls his visit to El Dorado County as the “most expensive drive of his life.”
    While traveling through the area with his daughter Crystal in 2001, Toogood stopped at a convenience store to buy a bottle of water. He exchanged small talk with a real estate agent in the store and learned about a piece of property for sale in Fair Play, about 20 miles southeast of Placerville. Toogood found himself picturing a cave on the property. Not just any cave, but a cave he would build to store wines and house a tasting room.
    Toogood, 55, has been interested in wines since his days as a graduate student at UC Davis, where he got his degree in veterinary medicine and minored in viticulture and enology — the study of the cultivation of grapes and the making of wine.
    As the story goes, he paid engineers some $40,000 for their advice on how to proceed. They told him to forget it; it was impossible to dig into the hillside.
    Toogood proceeded anyway, finding that the hard, decomposed granite could be excavated. Nine months, 1,800 tons of granite and plenty of concrete to line the interior walls later, Toogood had his 5,000-square foot U-shaped cave burrowed into the hill.
    The cave, which houses the Toogood tasting room and wines, contains barrel after barrel. Pinot grigio. Sangiovese. Barbera. Sauvignon blanc. There are at least 5,000 cases in the barrels of this El Dorado County winery.
    On a recent afternoon, Toogood sits at a table shaded by an umbrella just outside the cave and notes, “Wine loves three things. The dark, steady humidity and constant temperature of 61 degrees.” That means Toogood doesn’t pay a dime year-round to adjust the temperature.
    The Toogood label is a recent addition to the hills of the Gold Country, having opened for business in 2004. Toogood describes the winery as his passion. His vocation for nearly 30 years has been taking care of animals at his animal hospital in Yuba City. He divides his week between the winery and the veterinary business.
Growing up in Southern California, Toogood said he always wanted to be a veterinarian. He was famous for dragging home frogs and trying to raise various kinds of flies.
Continued...

• Share
  • Digg This
  • del.icio.us
  • Newsvine
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Furl It
  • !Y My Web
  • Google
• Email
• Print

Recommend This

Community Comments