A long, winding back road passes farms and forests, gardens and grazing cows: The bucolic vision earns its name, Pleasant Valley.

Still, the questions arise: “What wine country, friends, is this?”

Ah, there’s the sign — so unobtrusive, you might go right past it. The road gets narrower, it begins to twist and climb. Then all of a sudden there they are: grapes.

The vineyards line a sloping ridge of hillside, but they don’t dominate it. They share the terrain with spring flowers and oak trees. The winery itself is plain looking, barn-like. You might not know it’s a winery, except for the activity in the back that looks like bottling is under way.

The tasting room is an unpretentious affair: a polished slab of wood balanced on wine barrels. The woman behind the counter is tending to a customer, a local resident picking up wines for a fundraiser. “Come in,” she said, “and your dog is welcome. We like dogs.”

Tasting fees? No way. “What would you like to try?” she asked, as the dog, my companion on this wine tasting excursion, made herself happily at home.

The owner is somewhere, she explained, “I think John’s out in the back bottling — or, wait a minute — something went wrong with the plumbing that morning, so he might be taking care of that. Let me give him a call.”

In short order the vintner appears, a lanky, affable  man wearing jeans and a baseball cap. He invites an unexpected visiting writer — and her dog — to sit down at a picnic bench. And there, just beyond the vineyards is the panoramic view of snow-covered mountains that gives the vineyards and winery its name: Sierra Vista, home of award-winning classic and innovative wines. It’s also known as the Northern Rhone winery of California.

Sierra Vista’s owner, winemaker, vineyard manager, tractor driver, delivery boy, fork lift operator and sometime plumber is John MacCready, a pioneer who helped revitalized the wine industry in El Dorado County of the Sierra foothills. He’s also a past president and founding member of the Rhone Rangers, a group dedicated to promoting Rhone style wines made from the varietal that distinguish that wine region in France. After all it’s been 30 years since MacCready “looked at a map” and decided to try planting syrah, the grape that makes the intense red wines in the Northern Rhone Valley, in his own fledgling mountain vineyards.

Grapes thrived in El Dorado County when Italian immigrants chasing the Gold Rush decided it might be more lucrative to make wine. After Prohibition shut down the industry, the vineyards were replaced by other crops.

John and Barbara MacCready became interested in grape growing as an investment in the early 1970s. John MacCready, a native Yuba City, has a doctorate in electrical engineering, Barbara MacCready a masters degree in statistics. They decided instead of following careers around the country, they “wanted to stay in one place,” and they thought El Dorado County might be a great place to raise their children. In 1972 they bought 32 acres on the Red Rock Ridge outside Placerville, midway between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe. The site is 2,800-2,900 feet elevation, but the ridge is a good safeguard against frosts. Mountain grape growing and winemaking — “winemaking at a higher level” is an adventure, he notes on the Sierra Vista Web site. Mountain vineyards produce low yields and intense flavors, outstanding character and “provide thrilling tractor driving.”

John MacCready had studies from UC Davis, that detailed El Dorado’s potential for growing grapes, especially zinfandel. “So we planted cabernet sauvignon and sauvignon blanc,” he said. While they waited for the vines to grow, John taught at Cal State Sacramento and Barbara served as vineyard foreman and manager. In 1977, they produced their first vintage, 1,200 cases, and Barbara’s duties expanded to include marketing and managing a tasting room. When John was able to work full time at the winery, she “gladly relinquished” crush and vineyard duties to put her statistical expertise to work managing the office, a job she continues today.

The map of France hanging on the wall of the Sierra Vista tasting room gives a hint at how John MacCready began to draw parallels between El Dorado County in the foothills of California and the Rhone Valley in the foothills of the French Alps. The region, named for the Rhone River that runs from the Swiss Alps to the Mediterranean, had similarities to the El Dorado appellation in climate, rainfall and soil type, he said.

His experiment with syrah literally bore fruit. He went on to plant other Rhone varietals. Production at Sierra Vista has grown to 10,000 cases a year from estate-grown grapes, an imaginative array of wines that defies the standard notion that El Dorado is zin and cab country. Sierra Vista whites include both an unoaked and a barrel fermented chardonnay, fume blanc, viognier and a viogner-roussane blend. The reds include cabernets, zinfandels, syrahs, grenache and mouvedre. Lynelle is a highly praised a cabernet sauvignon based blend with syrah and grenache, but one of the most popular of the Sierra Vista wines is the classy Fleur de Montagne, a blend of syrah, grenache, mourvedre and cinsault. Sierra Vista also produces two rosés, the Sierra Vista Belle Rosé and Grenache Rosé.

“Our quest,” John MacCready has said, “is to become the premier Rhone producer of California.” It’s also encourage the public to try these more unfamiliar varietals. “One person told me, ‘I never order viognier because I can’t pronounce,” he said. “So you have to persuade them to taste it.”

Sierra Vista aims to do just that.

Sierra Vista Winery, southeast of Placerville off Highway 50, is open daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., except for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day and Easter. Info, 1-800-WINE-916 or (530) 622-7221.

El Dorado Winery Association publishes a complementary map to the region that serves as a useful guide to the many other fine wineries in the region, many of which are also producing outstanding Rhone varietals. Info, info@ eldoradowines.org, 1-800-306-3956 or www.EldoradoWines.org.