Thompsons Mining Camp Winery

Thompsons Mining Camp Winery is a small single person owned winery off the beaten path in Shingle Springs. I’ll let you know right off the bat that this place is not for everyone. If you’re looking for a big time operation like what they have in Napa then you will probably be annoyed and frustrated. If you’re just chilling out in Gold Country and are in «discovery» mode then you’ll be happy you found this place.
We left Lotus by bike that morning, talking about stopping by wineries in the area. Of course when you are hammering out hills the last thing you feel like doing is stopping for a wine tasting knowing you still have many more hills in front of you. So as we pulled into the drive for the KOA campground that afternoon and saw the sign for Thompsons Mining Camp Winery, we knew it was meant to be. A winery, just down the street from where we were staying. What a great way to end the day. I turned to hubby and said «if this place is run by a crazy dutch man then it would be perfect» (cue foreshadowing).
Up a short gravel drive is the old barn with a nice patio and picnic table. It looked open and it was still within the times stated on the sign. However, we had a difficult time finding anyone. We went inside to get out of the heat but many «hellos» didn’t seem to summon anyone even though we had seen someone at the window from outside. Finally, we went back outside to wave them down from the window. Turns out, it’s grandma who lives there and her son-​in-​law who runs the place is at the house nearby. Grandma who is in fact Dutch! She calls up to the house to get the owner and meanwhile tells us to help ourselves.
Turns out the «warning» system for the winery is triggered by cars and since we came up on bikes they had no idea we were there. Darn. Missed my chance to run away with cases of wine.
Anyways, after that was all sorted we were treated to wine (tasting was free) as well as interesting conversation from a former NASA rocket scientist turned vineyard owner and local history buff. We learned a lot about the old gold mining days and there were cool photos in the bar area. Alas, Mr Thompson was not Dutch, but his wife is — close enough.
This was a real small operation though. We bought some Zinfandel and were treated to a story about the missing label maker as an explanation as to why the labels were there but with the wine name cut out. He also had to self apply the cap with a heater.
I would category this winery as having «character», which was exactly what I was looking for.
Here’s the updated info:
Thompson’s Mining Camp Winery
(530) 677 — 7906
4801 Rock Barn Road
Shingle Springs, CA 95 582
Janneke & Bill Thompson — owners
Thurs — Sun, 10 AM — 5 PM