After the Zin thread I figured that it may be worthwhile to contribute some notes from my weekend of tasting in Paso Robles. I like Zin, but I actually go to Paso Robles more for the Rhone-style wines. These are the wineries I visited on my latest trip. Favorites I missed this time were Turley (I actually went here first, but they did not have any bottlings other than Pesenti and Old Vines), Wild Horse, L'Aventure, and Bonny Doon. You can't be everywhere at once. There are more and more wineries popping up in Paso Robles, so I try to hit my faves each time and try a few new wineries, too.
DAY ONE:
Dark Star Cellars:
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Little family-run outfit right on 46W. They do red wine only. They make merlot, cab, syrah, and zin. Their best wine is a meritage called "Ricordati" made of cab, merlot, and cab franc. Their zinfandel is pretty good, too, and they planted a lot of new vines on the estate just 10 weeks ago. The winemaker's 21 year old son Brian also has his own label which makes an interesting, but sweet, cab. He admits that his palate is still developing, but he already knows a lot about winemaking from helping his dad with production. We'll see what develops.
Midnight Cellars:
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Right next door to Dark Star. Claim to produce some of California's finest syrah. I don't know about that, but it was tasty enough to buy some. They make an extensive array of wines including rose, chardonnay, sangiovese, syrah, and zinfandel. The white wines were not that great, but the reds were quite good. They make a wine called "Capricco Italien" that they are proud of, which is a blend of sangiovese, cab, and merlot. Another interesting wine is "Gemini" which is a blend of zin and syrah. Their best wines are the sangiovese, syrah, zin, and a meritage called "Mare Nectaris" which is comprised of all 5 primary Bordeaux varietals (sans Carmenere). It is interesting that they grow Petit Verdot. The person doing the pouring couldn't comment on how challenging Petit Verdot is to grow in Paso Robles, but the blend called for a whopping 10%. I expect this is because the wines at Midnight (and much of Paso) tend to be on the light side and so the Petit Verdot is used to give it some tannins and structure. (The other varietal used is Malbec.) Stephan from L'Aventure makes a wine with 30% petit verdot, so perhaps it grows easily here.
Linne Calodo Cellars:
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Matt Trevisan has built a new winery, about 1 year old. He has planted his own vines, but is not producing from them yet. Most of his fruit comes from the James Berry, Cherry Ranch, and Denner vineyards. Linne Calodo has developed a following already, with many of the people there for tasting already familiar with the wines. Matt likes to make Zins with Rhone varietals in them. He feels that he is doing a service to the zin. When I asked him if it meant a disservice to the Rhone grapes, he laughed and said "Well, first and foremost it's a zin." He does make a wonderful Rhone blend called LC Red which is my favorite. It is a blend of Syrah, Grenache, and Mourvedre. He also makes a nice late-harvest zin called "Sweet Leona". The latest edition has grapes picked on December 23rd from vines cropped at 0.5 tons per acre. If you like dessert wines (and most people do not) this is one to try.
Matt's philosophy seems to be that adding Mourvedre to anything is a Good Thing and it seems to work. He let us barrel taste some of his yet-to-be-released wines and it looks like there might be some more good things to come. His wines are on the lighter and fruitier side, though. He uses American, French, and Hungarian oak and says that (for now) he is not interested or able to make wines that will last longer than about
5 years. He's got a new winery to pay for. Great guy, though, who previously made wine with Justin Smith (famed for syrahs produced on his Saxum label) before the two parted ways.Justin Vineyards & Winery:
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I think everyone knows that the wine that put this place on the map is their Bordeaux-blend called "Isosceles". They play with a wide, wide variety of grapes here, but unfortunately Justin is the first Paso Robles winery to become "Napa-fied". It was extremely crowded and the more unusual wines were open to tasting only to Wine Club Members (of which there were far more than I would've imagined in their own roped-off tasting area). I think that's ridiculous. I talked to the pourer for a while, telling him that I'd visited the winery before and so on but it didn't matter. What made me really annoyed is that we had lunch here (great prices and good food, by the way) and a lot of the wines were sold by the glass in the restaurant but could not be tasted. Huh? I had Justification (a cab franc with a little merlot) with my meal, but my companion did not taste it. When she she wanted to try some in the tasting room we were denied. If we had known that they wouldn't taste anything of note we may have ordered more wine with lunch.
They make a Rioja, Malbec, Souzao, and Tinta Cao but I wouldn't know anything about them being just a plebe. My favorite wine that I tasted was The Orphan - a NV blend of cab, merlot, and cab franc. At $13.50 per bottle it was a hell of a buy and I bought a few bottles. The wine was made from the juice left over after producing their other wines. It makes a much better than average every day wine and I highly recommend it.
I like some of Justin's wines, but I do not like the developing attitude. I don't think I even saw this in Napa very often. They like to paint the illusion of scarcity, but the truth is that they produce 40,000 cases of wine these days. I recommend having lunch at the restaurant and having a few wines by-the-glass with your food, but overall the experience was a turn-off.
Adelaida Cellars:
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Another winery with perhaps more attitude than it deserved. Their most highly recommended wine is the Viking Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. Everyone in Paso said to try it. When we showed up the pourer told us he had some open in the morning, but it was all gone. I told him I went there specifically to taste it and he said that their regular cab had a lot of Viking fruit in it. So I tasted that and it was less than inspiring. Good way to dampen my enthusiasm for the wine. I ended up buying their "2001 Schoolhouse Zin" and the other pourer (there were two) nodded at me as I left and said "Good choice" under his breath. I am not sure what that means, although it is a good (not great) zin. I didn't find anything else inspiring here and they apparently wouldn't pour the wines that are.
Eberle Winery:
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Eberle is a fixture on the Paso Robles wine scene. A lot of winemakers have passed through here and through Ken Volk's Wild Horse Winery. Wild Horse was just recently sold to Geyser Peak if you didn't know. I didn't. Ken will continue as general manager for 2 years as part of the sale. After that, who knows. Maybe a new label? I'm a fan of Ken's wines.
Anyway, back to Eberle. Eberle is known for his cabs, but none of them spoke to me. They are also starting to dabble in Rhone-style wines. They make a syrah and a viognier. The pourer said his favorite was the sangiovese. That was very good. Interesting was a syrah-based rose. Overall, none of the wines really hit me. The viognier (of which they have two bottlings) seems to be getting good press, but did not impress me.
Dinner:
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We had dinner at the newer restaurant downtown called "Paris". The owners are literally recent immigrants with broken English, but the food is authentic and very tasty. We decided to try this over the popular "Bistro Laurent" just for a change of pace. A nice plus is that there is very little mark-up on many of the wines.
DAY TWO:
Zenaida Cellars:
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A personal favorite of mine, but not really because of the wine. The grounds are really lovely and the staff is great. Wine Enthusiast did give their 1999 Syrah 91 points, so there is some good wine here, too. They are most proud of their syrah and their pinot noir. Yes, pinot in Paso Robles. It is predictably light and does not stand up to pinots made elsewhere, but it's drinkable. They grow all the fruit on their estate, except for their viognier. The fruit from that comes from Fralich. They did not have any to taste from the last vintage, but they are about ready to bottle the new vintage. I am anxious to try it. The winemaker is still in a phase where he does not yet have a defined style and we found different vintages of the same wine to taste quite different. Most people think the vintages are getting better as they go on, but there were some dissenting opinions during our tasting.
Norman Vineyards:
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Not a newcomer to wine, Art Norman planted his first grapes in 1971. They have only been winemaking since 1992, though. Zin is the order of the day here. The Classic Zinfandel is blended with 5% petite syrah, believe it or not. The Monster is a fantastic zinfandel for its $19 price and they have a new flagship estate bottling. They are also making zins from Rancho Cucamonga (Southern California) grapes, as long as they can get them. Most of their wines are pleasant, although a letdown compared to the great zins. They make a decent cab for the price and a really good late harvest zinfandel is produced about once every 3 years (they have the 2000 now, which means they may make one this year if they have the fruit).
Tablas Creek Vineyard:
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One of my favorite wineries in Paso Robles is only getting better. The lineup has expanded and everything was extremely good. This was one of the busier wineries, but we had a blast here. The staff was great and most of the tasters had been there before (including me). The staff had no problems popping open a bottle of anything (except Panoplie) and I think we (including the pourers) drank more than our share. A good time was had by all. Tasting was free, since they were out of logo glasses. Don't worry, I helped keep them in business. Most of the newer wines are whites based on rousanne, but the reds are good, too. Of interest is a Vermentino which they have just released. I had never had this variety before (French call it rolle) and I enjoyed this example quite a lot. Their chardonnay, called Antithesis, is one of my favorites.
Each vintage is getting better and better as the grapes age and (they will not say it, but I believe it to be true) the winemaker develops a style consistent with the fruit they grow. I always thought this winery had great fruit with underwhelming winemaking, but now it is to the point where I feel that the winemaker is maximizing the potential of the fruit with his blends. For example, mourvedre was eliminated from one of their blends and I find the result much more pleasing in this instance. Hey, it's a learning experience.
Garretson Wine Company:
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Mat Garretson calls himself Mr. Viognier and I cannot disagree. A lot of people find fault with his wines: probably because the quality does not justify the high cost, although it was pointed out to me that they sell through each vintage so maybe it isn't too expensive after all. Garretson makes some very good syrahs (he makes 5) but it is the grenache that appealed to me most. However, I really like grenache. The grenache is a debut bottling and Mat feels there is more to come. Mat also debuted a mourvedre, but I think that was a little more challenging. He recommends letting it age a few years before drinking. So what about the viognier? I like the Vogelzang Vineyard designate, but Mat did not make a release for 2002. (He still had a few bottles of the delicious 2001.) There should be a 2003 release. He had instead a viognier called The Chumhra from the Rozet Vineyard (where he seems to get a lot of fruit) which was decent, but not great. It is probably worth the $20 price tag. Rozet Vineyard was planted with contributions from John Alban, so I didn't mean that as a negative comment. The vineyard, in West Paso Robles, may become a star. The wine just wasn't as good as the wine from Vogelzang.
Mat makes some other wines, including a rousanne and some monster dessert wines. He sources all of his fruit, although he has planted some vines on a newly purchased property. Justin Smith (of Saxum) makes his own syrahs here and does some consulting with Mat on his syrahs.
Dinner:
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Dinner was at the well-known Villa Creek. Food with a Mexican flair. A lot of people consider this the best restaurant in Paso Robles. Maybe. It reminds one of Border Grill (of LA and Las Vegas), which I find tasty. I guess people from outside of California find such fare to be wildly refreshing and exotic, while I found it pleasant enough to go back. For some reason, I really prefer French or California cuisine with wine. (Italian in some instances.) The wine list is extensive, but heavily marked up.
Note:
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That bring me to my last recommendation: Albertson's. I read that the grocery stores in Paso Robles carry a lot of local wines at deep discounts. Well, I had read that about Napa, too, but have yet to find the market that fits that description (Safeway, I was told). In Paso Robles, Albertson's does the trick. I found certain wines at 50+% off the prices found at the wineries. Selection is not as extensive as at the wineries, but much more extensive than one would think. There is an entire half-aisle dedicated to Paso Robles wines. It is worth stopping by to see if they have any favorites on sale.
Dimitri