BigHammerWines.com

Some family wineries are born out of business plans. Belledor was born out of love — love for the land, for the craft, and for a corner of California that most wine drinkers have never heard of.

The Frazier family founded Belledor in 2015 on a piece of Shenandoah Valley property whose roots stretch back to the 1850s Gold Rush, when European immigrants first planted vines in Amador County and discovered that this sun-drenched Sierra Foothills terrain was quietly extraordinary wine country.

The name says it all: Belledor means "Beautiful Amador."

The wine itself is led by Brenna Frazier, the family's executive winemaker, who brought serious credentials back home — a Wine Business degree from Sonoma State, a Winemaking Certificate from UC Davis, and years of hands-on experience working with Jackson Family Wines and Trinchero Family Estates in Napa and Sonoma.

Cellar Scraps is Brenna's most playful wine, a small-batch red blend built from the best of what the cellar has to offer in any given year, and it earned a Gold Medal to prove the point.

Shenandoah Valley sits at elevation in the Sierra Foothills east of Sacramento, where warm days, cool nights, and well-drained volcanic soils produce wines with a character you won't find anywhere on the California coast — ripe and generous, but with a freshness and personality that's entirely their own.

Belledor is one of the region's finest examples of what a passionate family, a great piece of land, and a talented winemaker can do when they're all pulling in the same direction.