Three Paso Robles Tasting Rooms

Recently, Carolle and I took a three day wine tasting tour of Westside Paso Robles. It had been ten years since we had toured the area. We used to know it well. Things had changed. We still have the 1997-1998 Paso Robles Vintners Growers Map from our last visit in the nineties. It shows 10 tasting rooms east of 101, and 18 to the west. In addition 5 other wineries West of 101 offered tasting by appointment. 6800 acres were under cultivation. Now there are 26,000 acres, and (the figure varies from teller to teller) from 200 to 275 wineries.

In 1998 we could have visited all the tasting rooms in three days. No longer. We had to select. We decided to confine ourselves to wineries on the West Side. We weren’t trying to take a stand on the great internecine east-west AVA debate, but the West Side has the most picturesque landscape, and the highest percentage of boutique wineries.

Despite the proliferation of new wineries, some of the old Paso Robles characteristics, colorful personalities and tasting room experience that show them off, still can be found. One of the great things about tasting in Paso is that it is further from the big city than Santa Barbara or Napa. It’s more about the tasting, and less about the party (although, as with many things, it’s a matter of degree.) In any event, here are our experiences with three wonderful characters in three fun tasting rooms.

From Paso

Dover Canyon is on our 1997-1998 map, although I can’t recall that we had visited it. The winery and farmhouse where the owners Dan Panico and Mary Baker live is in an old walnut orchard. About seven acres have been planted to vines. The property is located on Vineyard Drive. Vineyard Drive cuts through the Templeton Gap, intersecting Highway 46 a way east of Dover Canyon Winery. There are about a dozen wineries on Vineyard Drive, including some of the more pricey like Turley and Linne Colado.

We drove up past a grove of old trees. As we got out, I started my routine of looking around the property taking pictures. A man, later identified as winemaker Dan Panico, was washing equipment behind the barn the I presume to be the winery. A dog, not the one on the wine label, came slowly up to check us out, but wasn’t very interested. An orange cat preened and guarded the front steps to the farm house.

We went in the tasting room, a small appendage off the barn, just big enough for the bar. A young couple with a new baby were preparing to leave. They had just joined the wine club, and were excitedly talking about coming back, and the wine. Carissa, the serving person, was helping them organize baby, purchased wine, and getting out the door. Everybody was pretty happy.

Carissa was a pleasant young woman, who knew when to talk, when to listen, and when to stay silent. Very nice. As she poured the second wine (we had skipped the whites), called the Barbarian, Carolle asked about how she would describe it. (The wine was 60% Zin and 40% Petit Sirah.) Carissa said they had just started pouring this year’s Barbarian, and she had not had a chance to taste it. So she picked up the tasting notes, and read in a clear voice, without inflection, the following:

“The Barbarian is named for its succulent fruit, seductive smoke, and Barbaric Hun campfire essence – roast game, smoke wild berries, trampled straw, blood, iron, warm horseflesh, leather, impending rain, heather, and forest flavor.”

I said: “Wow.” Carissa replied, yes, the other partner is a writer. About this time, Dan entered and was introduced. He wore a floppy hat, and a red plaid Pendleton. He appeared to have been tasting without spitting.

As Dan busied himself behind the bar, I read (to myself) the suggested food pairing with the Barbarian: “Veal in a reduction sauce and toasted baby root vegetables, grilled Portobellos with Gorgonzola, New Zealand rack of lamb with a cranberry-Tequila salsa, and Gorgonzola potatoes.”

Dan turned toward us. When I taste I carry with me one of those school composition notebooks they sell in chain drug stores. I take notes in it, and tape into it any paper I pick up at the winery. I am a nerd. Maybe more than a nerd. Sometimes the notebook inspires a comment. Sometimes it doesn’t. The most common exchange is: You’re taking notes, you must be serious. No, I’m not serious, just nerdy.

I think the notebook spooked Dan a little. He stared at it. What are you doing, he asked. Don’t worry, I said. I’m just a nerd. Are you writing a book. No, just taking notes. Don’t worry. I seldom post about wines I don’t like. Just those I do.

Carissa had taken away the Syrah bottle before I had a chance to check the alcohol content. So I asked, what was the alcohol in the Syrah? Why do you want to know, he asked. This is a hot climate. Alcohol gets elevated. I tried to be noncommittal.

Why did you come here, he asked. Well, we heard the buzz about Red Rhones in Paso, and wanted to check it out. Carissa was pouring the Syrah. (It was also true that when I was googling responses to Alice Feiring’s book, I came across Mary Baker’s blog, and was taken by her passionate defense of Paso. I wanted to try her wines. But I didn’t say that.)

This is a Zin house, Dan said. I was one of the first to do Viognier in California, but Rhone is just PR. Paso is Zin country. This is a Zin house.

Carissa was pouring the Zin. Cujo Zin. Dan explained the name. The dog on the label, a Saint Bernard, although no longer alive, had been Dan’s dog. The name came from a Stephen King story about a rabid Saint Bernard. From that: Killer Zin. I got the impression these people liked word play. (And the Cujo had by far the highest Quality/Price ratio of any wine we had on the trip.)

As we were lingering over the Carmenere, the conversation turned to movies. Carissa said she and her boyfriend were going to see the Wrestler that night, None of us had seen it.

Dan talked about Sideways. For him, in the end Miles had been the true to cause, while Jack had sold out. Carolle pointed out that ending was ambiguous. You didn’t know if Virginia Madsen opened the door, or not . But I think Dan was talking about another kind of passion.

Dan asked if we had seen the Good Year with Russell Crowe. My pop cultural knowledge has major holes after 1969, so I couldn’t recall it. Watch it, Dan said. When I got home I googled, and of course I had seen it. Had he said Peter Mayle, I would have known instantly. Maybe it is the story of Dan and Mary passionately working their small vineyard in their version of Provence.

In her way, Carolle is just as nerdy as I am. While we are tasting. she makes little self-adhesive labels which she pastes on the bottles we buy. Her note for our bottles of Cujo: “What a hoot!”

From Paso

Pipestone is not on any major artery. It’s down a bumpy side road off a windy side road, and then up a long bumpy driveway. A farmhouse is set back from the road. Parking is between the vineyards, and a small tasting room. Signs are everywhere:

“SUSTAINABLE:
“We farm sustainably using organic farming methods.
“Look at the vine row. It’s alive with clover, lady bugs, and other beneficial insects. The soil is alive. If you could smell the soil it even smells alive. Under a microscope, there are millions of microorganisms living there now!”

And:

“Certified WILDLIFE Habitat”

A wood burning bread over decorated with colorful tiles sits on a covered patio. Chickens ran around. Sheep grazed. A dog checked us out.

We entered the tasting room and were met by Winemaker/Co-owner Jeff Pipes, a ruddy face smiling guy with a light beard. He shows us to a small bar, and begins to pour. We’re doing Rhone Reds, a Syrah Cab blend, made from estate fruit, and a Petit Sirah he gets from his neighbor.

We find he is a former lawyer. We talk retired lawyer talk a little bit. He was an environmental lawyer in Minnesota. He never made much money at it, so he decided to follow his dream and come to California.

He bought the property in 1996. He planted in 1997. Luckily for him 1999 was very hot, and he brought in a small crop of Syrah. Without that crop he would not have been able to keep the place, but now he and his wife are doing okay. They are pretty much self-sufficient. The farm is solar powered. They have a zero landfill policy. People mail them back their shipping cartons. They compost.

Even the design for the label on the wine was painted by Jeff’s wife Florence Wong. It is a pretty view of the farm, done in primary colors.

We mentioned that we hadn’t been in Paso since about 1997 or 1998. Jeff says, when he got his permit for the winery, he was the fortieth winery in Paso. Now they are 220 wineries. He tells us the Frank Nerelli, formerly of Pesenti, now has a small winery called Zin Alley.

He talks about his farming practices. He doesn’t spray. I know from his website that the whole property was laid using the principles of feng shui. He plows with a team of horses. They can be willful, but they are part of the naturalness of the place. He has a scrapbook he shows us with pictures of him plowing with the horses. When he explains how important it is to use the horses, he looks us in the eye. His voice becomes lawyer firm: do you know what a tractor does to the soil. It just kills it.

No tractors, but animals can run through. Part of the vineyard is fenced, but the rest of the property is open for the wildlife. He mentions deer, and other wild animals, but he didn’t say turkeys. Knowing how the birds like to eat grapes, I think a silent aha, but no, on his website is a picture of a flock of wild turkeys running through the property.

We buy some wine, and feel happy. It’s always a pleasure to see someone living his dream.

From Paso

We like robust Italian American Zins. They’re part of what our town, Cloverdale, is about. Back in the nineties, we would stop into one of our favorites, Pesenti. An old man, whom I now guess was Aldo Nerelli, would serve us. He always seem slightly amused that city people like us were stopping by.

From a book by Dick Rosano on Italian American winemakers I know a little of the story. Lorenzo Nerelli bought land on York Mountain in 1917. Old timers remember stopping there on runs between the coast and Paso. Frank Pesenti arrived in Willow Creek 1914. He bought land in 1923. He grew grapes, and bonded a winery in 1934.

After World War II, the Nerelli and Pesenti families combined operations: Aldo Nerelli, son of Frank, married Sylvia Pesenti, daughter of Lorenzo in 1946. Frank Nerelli was the son of Aldo and Sylvia. In 2000, Aldo sold the bulk of the property to Larry Turley, who today makes a Pesenti Zin from the old grapes across from the Turley winery on Vineyard Rd. Frank now farms 3 acres of old vines in front of his house on Hwy 46. His winery is Zin Alley.


The tasting room is in the barn. The hours appear to be open when Frank is there, closed when he is not. We had passed by the day before after leaving Pipestone, but it had been closed. On the way back to Paso Carolle spotted the Open sign on the driveway, so we flipped a u-turn and went back.


Entering the place, three guys were at the bar. None were as old as I am, but they were working on it. A life size cardboard cut out of Willie Nelson stood at the far end. Bent over the bar next to Willie was a guy who looked a little like Jerry Garcia. A white haired guy with a starched white shirt and tie was talking to a fair haired Waylon Jennings about business. They were winding down as we walked up.

All over the barn were signs about cowboy this and that, and one that directed patrons to check their guns at the bar. Carolle was a little taken aback. She wasn’t quite ready for the decor.

Waylon Jennings turned out to be Frank Nerelli. After confirming that I was there to taste, he pointed the a piece of paper listing his wnes: a Zin, a blend with 90% syrah and 10% Zin, and a couple of dessert Zins. “This is was I’ve got,” he said. The price listed next to all four wines was $44. He explains that the Syrah comes from his son’s vineyard. The Zin comes from right out front.

Carolle was still hanging back. She was not going to taste. I bellied up to the bar and asked to try the Zin and the blend, but I passed on the dessert wines.

The white shirted guy left, and Jerry Garcia disappeared into a little room in the back. I asked Frank if he used to run Pesenti. It wasn’t really a question; just an awkward attempt to get him taking. He said he had, but didn’t elaborate. I said my parents used to live in Cambria and we came over to Paso to the wineries frequently in the 90’s. We liked the Pesenti wines.

Frank returned to the present. He said now he just dry farms the three acres here. Whatever he grows is what he makes wine from.

Pressing on, I try another tack, telling him he could probably write a book about all the changes that have taken place. He replies he is too busy. Someone else will have to do it.

Carolle is still not quite at home. She asks if he will shoot me if I say I don’t like the wines. We don’t have any guns here he says. Carolle looks at all the paraphernalia on the walls, and retreats into silence.

I say want to buy a bottle of Zin. He says, you do? and goes to ring it up. Did I just image things, or did he seem surprised and pleased? I thank him and we leave.

The as yet un-pruned head trained vines growing in the weeds down the hill look like they could tell a story, too.