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Brawn & Brains: Paso Robles' Rhone Blends

If ever there was a winegrowing region that felt like a frontier, it’s Paso Robles. Situated along the Pacific Coast in Central California, the landscape is straight out of Easy Rider: rugged, tawny hills are littered with chaparral and oak trees as they roll on for miles. Harley Davidsons cruise along narrow, twisting roads under the blazing sun. It’s been dubbed the wild west of the wine industry, for more than just its many cattle ranches. The town’s roots go back to real cowboys: it was cofounded by Jesse James’s uncle, and the outlaw himself spent time in Paso while healing from gunshot wounds from a bank hold up. But history aside, there’s an ethos here among winemakers that matches the pioneer spirit. Paso’s winemakers are pathfinders, eschewing standard practice and forging ahead with whatever their hearts—and tastebuds—dictate.

The many various microclimates make this possible. Paso Robles AVA is a huge valley that stretches 100 miles along the interior of the coastal Santa Lucia mountain range. Though there’s no direct access to the ocean, the grapes receive its cooling benefits in two ways: 1.) the Monterey fog, which creeps over the mountains in the morning, moderating hot daytime temps, and 2.) the Templeton Gap, where the mountains dip from 3000 feet to 2000 feet and allow marine air into the valley. Weather patterns vary dramatically based on where a vineyard is located. Rainfall can basically double within a span of 10 miles. Many grapes thrive here, when grown in the right pocket: old vine Zinfandel, Mourvedre, Tempranillo, Tannat, Cinsault, Syrah, and even finicky Pinot Noir. Unctuous, broad whites like Viognier, Roussanne, Grenache Blanc, and Picpoul are also widely planted. The big sun, ocean influence, and long growing season all add up to a region that can grow an eclectic hodgepodge of grapes—paradise for a winemaker with a bent toward experimentation.

The Tinkerer

It’s the area near the Templeton Gap corridor, to the west of the 101 freeway, that is ground zero for the most well-crafted, innovative Rhone-ish blends coming out of the AVA, and perhaps the state. This is also where the concentration of calcareous soil is the highest, while it is relatively scarce in the rest of California. Vineyard location is so central to the winemaking of Matt Trevisan that he named his winery—Linne Calodo—after the deep, hillside clay loam of the area. It started as a side project with Justin Smith of Saxum while he was working for Paso stalwarts Justin Vineyards and Wild Horse (being a forklift operator has made him a meticulous cellar organizer, says Meghan Ball, his assistant winemaker). He bought his property on Vineyard Drive in 2000, planted his 50-acre estate vineyard in 2005, and built a stunning new tasting room and winery in 2009. For a wine region in the grips of rapid growth, this makes him something of an old-timer, and his wines have amassed a devoted following.

Trevisan is a consummate tinkerer. He’s super precise in his field and cellar—picking his grapes in the coldest stretch of morning, using natural yeasts, only physical punch downs, no chemicals. But when it comes to blending, his approach is pure intuition, essentially going around tasting and marking up barrels, like sprinkling pinches of spices from assorted jars into a stew. The names of his blends—e.g., the ‘Contrarian,’ the ‘Perfectionist,’ the ‘Problem Child’(next release 2015)—reflect the id of each wine (and perhaps the winemaker). The ‘Overthinker’ is the “liquid photograph” of his estate vineyard, a Grenache/Syrah/Mourvedre field blend that reflects how much “this whole journey that I have been on is all about thinking,” he says in his blog, 3milesfromhere.com. The ‘Perfectionist’ is his cellar-born project, where he lets the “wine make the wine.” In a cellar full of experimentations, it’s his most experimental. It’s almost entirely whole-cluster, and he ferments the Syrah and Grenache together in concrete, which gets seasoned over the years like a cast iron skillet. The wine is structured and firm with deep, brooding raspberry and minerality. It’s a geeky, complex wine that is going to last a long time. Drink now, but save a bottle or two for a few years down the line.

Linne Calodo.JPG

His Grenache- and Zinfandel-based wines are equally focused, but more voluptuous and “bassy” as Ball puts it. The ‘Sticks and Stones’(next release 2015) Grenache blend is incredibly fresh and ripe. Syrah and Mourvedre provide a nice backbone to it, and add a bit of seriousness to its flirtatious character. This blend is a fan favorite, and they sell out of it every year. In fact, they sell out of nearly all their wines every year, and in November they typically close up the tasting room. Trevisan keeps paying everyone’s salary, though, and sends his employees to volunteer at the local Slow Food co-op in the meantime. He’s as holistic an employer as a winemaker: even the field crew are full-time employees who get the same benefits as everyone else. For someone whose goal is to “grow grapes, make wines, and foster an environment that shies away from traditional, rigid, and archetypal industry norms,” he’s succeeding in spades.

The Minimalist

Down the road, Eric Jensen makes the wines at Booker, another project based largely on Rhone varietals. The winery is named after two orphaned brothers, Claude and Dick Booker, who were local fixtures in the 20th century, and who left all of their land—1200 acres—to the Templeton community when they passed. Jensen’s focus in making wine is to do it right in the vineyard, then step back and not interfere with the wine in the cellar. His 72 acres are farmed biodynamically, and everything is done with an eye to keeping carbon emissions as low as possible. He manages soil health with permanent crop cover instead of machinery. Irrigation is extremely limited. Like his farming, his cellar practices are natural and noninterventionist: he rarely uses a pump, never racks or filters, and keeps sulfur levels very low.

Booker-4.JPG

The quality of the land he’s farming is part of his success. There’s a high content of limestone, and steep hills with many different exposures, so he can control yields and grow a range of varietals. The majority of all this excellent fruit goes into his own wines, but he also supplies heavy hitters in the area, including Linne Calodo and Saxum.

Booker’s 2012 ‘Oublie’ is their ode to Counoise, a grape that plays a small part in Chateauneuf du Pape, but that has recently found a following in Paso, thanks to Tablas Creek Winery, who brought cuttings over from France. Counoise makes a deeply purple, spicy wine, with notes of blueberry and strawberry. ‘Oublie’ is French for the “forgotten,” a nod to the grape’s scarcity. It’s blended here with Grenache (on their stems for extra structure) and Mourvedre, and the wine exudes black pepper, blackberry, and blueberry.

Their 2012 ‘Vertigo’ Syrah-based blend is grown on a hillside so steep, that two ATVs have literally gone head over heels down them. The wine is perfumey and deep. The addition of stems during fermentation adds exotic spice and additional tannins. They call their 2012 ‘Remnant’ their “fun” wine, with the goal of showing as many parts of the vineyard as possible. It was originally called the ‘Alchemist,’ until the BATF rejected it for being too provocative and suggestive of mystical powers. Mysticism aside, there is something magical about it—big, rich, lush, and dark. The tannins are firm, but the palate is soft. It finishes on long notes of chocolate and black fruits.

The Mayor

Cris Cherry knows everyone in Paso. Or seems to. After years of running a locally oriented, farm-to-table restaurant called Villa Creek, he started making wine under the same name in 2001. That’s 15 vintages; 15 times making wine. But, according to Cris, it’s only in the last five years that he’s “comfortable in my own skin. I do what I do.” He was initially bottling big, high-octane wines, but he’s gradually honed his craft: earlier harvests, more stem inclusion, and less oak usage. He also stomps the grapes with his own two feet. The result is a flight of wines that present structure and depth, plus lip-smacking deliciousness. These are wines with muscle and class—bodybuilders who can ballroom dance.

For the last ten years, he’s been sourcing his grapes from some of the best growers in the county—Denner, James Berry, and Luna Matta, all organic and sustainable vineyards with excellent fruit. In spring of 2012, Cris and his wife planted their first grapevines—four acres of biodynamically farmed Grenache, planted on the calcareous and salicious shale hillsides surrounding the tasting room. They are planning to eventually convert to dry farming. They expect their first estate wines, under the Maha label, to be online in three to five years.

Stem inclusion occupies a large corner of Cris’s winemaking thoughts. Contrary to popular belief, Cris is moving toward the theory that more stem inclusion actually provides more balance than partial stem inclusion, which can make the wine taste out of whack. In both his 2012 Garnacha and 2012 ‘Willow Creek Cuvee,’ he uses 75 percent whole-cluster fruit in the fermenting process. The Garnacha is juicy and perfumey, with notes of delicate cassis, licorice, and herbs. The stems undoubtedly add a backbone, but there’s a holistic balance. He ferments in 30 percent stainless steel and the rest in big, 500 L barrels. The ‘Willow Creek Cuvee’ is mostly Grenache, with 20 percent Mourvedre and 10 percent Syrah. It’s dark fruited with firm tannins, and notes of cola and cocoa. He’s moving toward 100 percent whole cluster, and this is what he’s done with his 2013 Mourvedre. “Let tannins fight tannins,” Cherry says.

Villa Creek, Cris among the Grenache.JPG

His property is a little ways down Peachy Canyon Road, a bit off the beaten path of Vineyard Drive where most of the wineries in the area are clustered. It’s young, and he embraces its feral quality. He only discs every other row to keep biodiversity. Sheep help mow and fertilize. He uses a Goblet-head pruning system instead of a more orderly trellising, so that the Spanish Garnacha he’s growing can create its own open canopy for shade.

Cherry is very immersed in the conversation around Paso’s AVA, and about the region’s future. As of now, it is the largest geographic appellation in California, covering more than 26,000 vineyard acres. There are intensive, ongoing debates about how to divide it, into as many as 11 subregions. “Nothing is set in stone in Paso. The climate lets us grow so much. We can do Bordeaux varietals all day long. Italian—we haven’t even scratched the surface. Rhones are well ensconced, but the culture is still new. We’ll see what happens in 20 years.”

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