#paso robles wineries

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Lakeside Paso

A few quick notes on the Atascadero Lakeside Wine Festival today… Outstanding in Spot 1: Peachy Canyon‘s Cinsault rosé and the sublime Peche Blanc white blend. Fair perfection in Provence-style rosé for the former, an unbelievable balance of textures in the latter–and the finish will blow your mind. Like I have often mused about Tablas Creek: the beauty of Ancient Peaks is NOT in the hi-profile…

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Worth the Price

I furrow my brow a bit when heading into a bottle co-labeled “Zinfandel” and “Paso Robles”, as experience has taught extremely few will match my standards of the variety. There are some–and I’m always looking, as I have an open mind, despite heinous rumors to the contrary. This one showed great promise on initial sniffs: tight and un-slutty, muted flowery complexity shrouded in structure, so I…

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St. George Protect Us

An extremely interesting red wine–perhaps the first 100% I have had on the blog–pulling sharp contrasts across the palate and not easy to pigeon-hole. Deep glowing dark purple, the edge gradually thinning to bright pink. BBQ-meaty and dense in the nose, vibrant sake-ish round texture flush with crisp berry–plum and green pear–not particularly effusive, with a distinct ripeness lurking. Crazy…

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Worthy

Here’s a new one. To me at least–and to the Paso Robles tasting scene. Popped in here in my recent jaunt to Paso as a last-minute “Have you ever heard of these guys?” “Nope.” “OK Let’s go in!” I’m guessing–based on vibe in the TR–a local rancher deciding to get into the wine business. I was rolling my eyes pretty hard–gotta admit–but the wines turned out to be ROCK-SOLID and I brought home a few…

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Pet Project

An interesting blend–and one I’m not angry about at all. Ridiculous black staining purple, a nose clean and unslutty, with smoky meat and light vegetal plastered heavy over dense black cherry and candied plum. It FEELS like PS and TASTES like PS, but there’s a peppery bit of anger residing inside turning everything up to 11. A fairly low-intervention and moderate-alcohol winery in Paso…

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Red Dreams

Visited this winery over the weekend, and: though you’re all conditioned to influencer, wine-writer–and even critic–mouthing the constant and nauseating refrain of “ALL THE WINES WERE WONDERFUL!”, you understand not to expect the same from me. A few of things DID stand out, however–and I grabbed a couple bottles to share. Here’s the first of those: a gorgeous estate Temp I found rather…

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Wine for the 99

A thick stew of soggy macerated fruit greets the nose, acentuated by a pleasant side-helping of strong briary angst and copious Christmas spice. Definite deep earthy notes are also a big plus but the gravitas of all elements combined give strong forebodings to typicity and dearthy expected outcomes. Dark, deep black in the glass with barely-softening edges of ruddy garnet. Piles of salty leather…

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Du Hast

This is an odd wine. An extremely flowery, candied nose to it, muddled with black cherry and earthy briar, but that’s all down deep under an effusively sweet bouquet. Nearly opaque–obvious turbidity in a dark-ruby glass. Generous air displays far more saline, saliva, and pickling-spice complexity, but the shrill dessert note plays long and hard. Tasting it levels the playing field a bit, but the…

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