ROAD TRIPS

Paso Robles
By Jenise Stone

“Actually, I like a little ass in my wine.”

So said winemaker/proprietor Andrew Murray, attempting to bottom-line (sorry, can’t resist) what sets French syrah apart from the clean-cut American style that he makes. I was in central California two weeks ago with nine members of my old Los Angeles wine tasting group and we were on our way to Paso Robles to taste wines for a couple of days where we would, as old friends always do, run lines like that into the ground.

There are nearly 100 wineries in Paso Robles. Many have been scoring well with critics. But I don’t pay attention to critics, I talk to people whose palates I trust, and these are the names of the Paso wineries most recommended to me for this visit: Saxum, Linne Calodo, Fratelli Perata, Garretson, Justin, Tablas Creek, Le Cuvier, Hug, Pipestone, Denner, Victor Hugo, Windward and L’Aventure.

Paso Robles is a warm climate wine appellation located about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco where classic Rhone varietals like syrah, grenache, mourvedre on the red side and viognier, marsanne and roussane on the white have made themselves at home. So much so that the area’s spring Hospice du Rhone celebration attracts winemakers and wine tourists from all over the globe. ‘Warm climate’ means that the grapes get riper so there’s more sugar to convert to more alcohol, such that Paso wines routinely exceed 15%. And this creates some ripe, saturated flavors that make Paso wines distinctive.

Ass, some will be relieved to learn, isn’t one of them.

The wines of two of Paso’s best, Tablas Creek and Justin, have found their way to Whatcom County.

Justin
Justin is without a doubt Paso Robles’ first and biggest success story, with wines known around the world for their fresh and modern, but not over the top, style. (If only I could say the same for the yahoos who poured for us there.) The 05 Mourvedre tasted of sweet light red fruits and nutmeg. The 05 Chardonnay was crisp like a good green apple. An 04 Tempranillo, the grape that makes Spain’s Riojas was a solid red wine that tasted more like a syrah blend than a wine from Spain. The 04 Cabernet Sauvignon, available at Haggen Fairhaven for $24, hit all the right notes for cabernet without going overboard. I personally preferred it to the 04 Justification, the junior of their two signature reserve red blends (the other is the collectible Isosceles, which is never poured in the tasting room). And the 04 Syrah, also available at Haggen Fairhaven ($26), is a stylish, well-balanced wine full of black fruit and bacon notes. The Cabernet and Syrah are both wines to drink now through 2011.

Tablas Creek
Beaucastel is one of the Rhone’s most legendary wines, and when it’s owners decided to start a California winery from scratch they came to Paso Robles with cuttings from their French vineyards. Those vines were planted in 1987 and then patiently propagated to fill the 120 acres of grapes that make the wines in the Tablas Creek portfolio. Tablas Creek wines are made in a restrained and ageable old world style, and every single wine poured for us in the bright and charming tasting room was classy and without fault. We sampled about ten, but I’ll just mention some highlights. The 05 Cotes de Tablas Blanc, a white blend of that includes viognier and roussane, was a zippy blend of white nectarine and lemon flavors. The 05 Rose (made mostly of mourvedre and syrah) was a revelation with watermelon and sage notes. Roussane is a grape that Tablas’ vigneron only bottles as a single varietal in the warm years when this last-to-ripen grape builds huge character from the long hang time. 2003 was such a year, and this Roussane (available at Purple Smile Wines in Fairhaven, $26) is a rich, Viscuous wine showing honeysuckle, pear, almond and lemon. Among the reds, Tablas Creek makes a lively, generously styled wine for early drinking, and bestows the Beaucastel name on their top of the line Esprit that is made for cellaring 10-15 years. Haggen Fairhaven has the Cotes du Tablas Rouge in stock at $23, while Jeff Wicklund’s Purple Smile in Fairhaven has the top-of-the-line, Chateneuf du Pape-styled (and best vintage ever for this wine) 2003 Esprit de Beaucastel (50% mourvedre, 27% syrah, with the rest grenache and Counoise) which has briary blackberry, grilled meat and sage notes. I have the 2000 (the first year this wine was made, the vines had to mature to produce grapes good enough) in my cellar, and I can hear those 2003’s calling to me all the way from Birch Bay….

Btw, Jeff invites all to drop by and try another Paso Robles winery whose book he has an area exclusive on, Four Winds (hold the ass jokes, please). I’ve not had the pleasure of tasting them, but he describes them as the bigger, more in your face style (pretty much the opposite of Tablas Creek) of Paso Robles wines.

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(10-21-2006)

Jenise Stone is a wine enthusiast and avid foodie who lives in Birch Bay, Washington. She can be reached by emailing jenise@tasteofwhiterock.com.

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