Paso Robles--can it be saved?

S

SFJoe

Joe Dougherty
Oh, not really. I'm sure Paso is doing just fine. But I'm hoping someone can tell me what it is about the soil and situation that makes the wines into such puppy dogs. I used to try many more than I do lately, but I happen to have a glass in front of me now. It tastes to me like the best chance Paso Robles has, and it still doesn't do it for me.

The wine is the 2007 Grenache/Mourvedre/Syrah from the James Berry Vineyard, via Wind Gap Wines. It's half grenache and a third mourvedre. I've mentioned before that I think Pax Mahle is doing righteous work at Wind Gap, and this is well in line with their other efforts--it expresses its terroir well in a restrained, balanced way. No spoof, no excess, it's well made wine. Big, somewhat chocolatey fruit, some earth, a whole passel of raspberry. There is a bit of pepper in there that is not from my padrons, nor from the pepper on my onglet. It's 14.9%, which from these varieties and that appellation is not bad at all.

But the fruit is so plush and full, and to my palate the lightly extracted tannins and lowish acid can't keep up. It's funny how much I admire this wine and can't enjoy it.

So why are Paso wines so slobbery, even the best of them? Soil, climate, what?

Maybe I should just drag my ass back to Chinon and stop whining, but I'm actually curious to understand the terroir. Can anyone explain?
 
One part is, it's a little too fucking hot. Vines are too young, mostly. No doubt a lot of winemaking decisions get made that I might not agree with. I think the terroir itself it maybe pretty interesting.
I made some Paso blends for a couple of years from a brand new vineyard that I was pretty happy with, that I think were pretty well respected by some of the denizens of this asylum. If the vineyard hadn't gone south I''d probably still be making them.
What was your question again?
 
The Oxford Companion to the Wines of North America edited by Bruce Cass breaks down the lay of the Paso Robles land pretty well, I think. There are differences between what lay on the east and west sides of the major highway, as I recall.
 
What Steve said. Heat is surely part of your issue, since you like Chinon. You can try wines from the farther western parts, more exposed to the ocean influence, picked earlier, etc. That said, slobbery is as much or more a winemaking and picking decision as a terroir issue, IMHO. Get very ripe fruit and then go for plush, smoothed out tannins and then slobbery gobbish oozey wine (to my taste) is almost inevitable. I see it happening all over the place, from Paso to Lodi to Napa. OTOH, I've really enjoyed some Paso Zin and Rhone varieties when not too ripe and framed with nice dusty dry tannins. Perhaps more to your taste, a Calcareous Vineyard Twisted Sisters Red blend tasted recently was practically Dressner-like in its zestiness.
 
If terroir is to be genuinely explored and assessed in CA, the states vines are going to have to be turned over to monks for a few centuries. They will of course need to be free of any commercial pressures and able to experiment without limitation. Certainly much of what was learned over the centuries in Europe will help when it comes to what varieties might do best where, but global warming may be happening too quickly to arrive at reliable conclusions.

Short of that, consumers will need to demonstrate that they don't actually like alcoholic fruit goop by
no longer buying it at corporate volume levels.
 
Speaking of goop, I saw my very first bottle of Mollydooker today. It was unopened. I felt like a kid going to the Lion House at the zoo... grateful for the thick glass between us.
 
So the wine I tried last night wasn't goopy. I've had other wines from Paso, Ridge Zins say, that weren't goopy. But they were all a little soft and plush.
 
Joe, you're not an admirer of the wines from Tablas Creek? Because after Steve's work (not having had most of Wind Gap's output, other than the orange stuff), that's pretty much the beginning and end of what I like from there.

I can drink a few more than that, but I wouldn't choose to, as a rule.
 
I've had a good wine or two from Tablas Creek, though I don't taste them regularly.

But I'm more trying to understand the soils. I get it about distance to the ocean and "wind gaps," you might call them. But I have a sense of wines from there being extra soft.

Maybe it's just a hallucination.
 
"Extra soft;' interesting term.

I do think the side of the highway you're on makes a difference and I do think its pretty hot in most places. But I also think that Steve proved with his Basetti syrah, that some places aren't too hot.

Maybe it suffers from the same malady as most of CA (and the US) - all things considered, its a pretty young growing area and folks haven't found the right matches of place and variety yet.
And considering the demands of the market that they're doing it in, it may take longer than it should.

Best, Jim
 
Basetti's not in Paso Robles, is it? Augie Hug said they picked syrah from there after Thanksgiving. I thought it was closer to San Luis Obispo.
James Berry is an interesting vineyard. That's where Saxum gets its fruit for Rocket Block, which at 16.6 percent in 2003 is probably a wine that would get little love on this board. I liked it.
It's also where Copain gets its fruit for a couple of its wines, including its roussanne. A Wine Disorder lurker has been generous enough to open a couple of bottles when I was around. Light, crisp, stony fruits, good minerality. I think the Copoain would get lots of love on this board.
So I guess what I'm saying is that James Berry can be a Jekyl and Hyde vineyard and I wonder if wonder if the grapes lesser known winemakes buy were leftovers meant for a different style of wine.
 
Bassetti is near Cambria; it could be thought of as a cold site, in a certain way, though Winter is very mild there. Matt Smith farms James Berry, so he is both grower and vintner (Saxum). I suspect all the fruit there is pretty good. I don't think any of the guys who get fruit from there are "lesser known."
 
originally posted by Florida Jim:

Maybe it suffers from the same malady as most of CA (and the US) - all things considered, its a pretty young growing area and folks haven't found the right matches of place and variety yet.
And considering the demands of the market that they're doing it in, it may take longer than it should.

Best, Jim
Click to expand...

And we'll never find out unless we stop irrigating.
E
 
Joe,
In a nutshell:
West Side Paso has lots of higher altitude vineyards and much of the soil is chalky, plus they get some ocean influence. There are lower-lying sites as well but the best ones face north, which helps to mitigate some of the sun issue.
The east side, which is where most of the vineyards were originally planted, are flat are bake in the sun.
The West Side folks have been trying to get their own AVA but the East Siders, who are the old guard and tend to be big and loaded with money, have been stonewalling it as it will obviously raise the problem of people learning that their vineyards were poorly chosen for high-quality wine. The vineyards on the West Side are usually hilly and broken up so are not conducive to easy vineyard work or mass production so the producers over there tend to be of the small, hands-on sort who don't mind making small-production wines.
But the East Side guys don't want to look bad compared to the guys on the other side of the highway.
More complicated than that but that's the thumbnail.
 
Remember that all things are relative, so even the "cooler" spots are still plenty hot and the fruit gets ripe. It just doesn't tend fry like it does on the flats.

You'd probably like the Tablas Creek wines, by the way.

Here's some in-depth discussion.
 
In that article note the discussion of soil.
The "summit" vineyards are almost (completely?) on the west side.
James Berry is the most obvious one and if you've been up there the soil is blinding white. They dig up shark and whale fossils all the time and recently unearthed an complete whale skull, which is very rare to find. That area is old sea bed that got pushed inland and up from the Pacific.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
A lurker writesJoe,
In a nutshell:
West Side Paso has lots of higher altitude vineyards and much of the soil is chalky, plus they get some ocean influence. There are lower-lying sites as well but the best ones face north, which helps to mitigate some of the sun issue.
The east side, which is where most of the vineyards were originally planted, are flat are bake in the sun.
The West Side folks have been trying to get their own AVA but the East Siders, who are the old guard and tend to be big and loaded with money, have been stonewalling it as it will obviously raise the problem of people learning that their vineyards were poorly chosen for high-quality wine. The vineyards on the West Side are usually hilly and broken up so are not conducive to easy vineyard work or mass production so the producers over there tend to be of the small, hands-on sort who don't mind making small-production wines.
But the East Side guys don't want to look bad compared to the guys on the other side of the highway.
More complicated than that but that's the thumbnail.
Click to expand...

if we throw in a little irrigation subterfuge as well, i think this could be a scenario for roman polanski.
 
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