I'm just back home from a trip to Paso Robles, California, an adorable little town halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. It's not a simple direct flight from anywhere--you pretty much have to come in through either LA or San Jose, then drive or take Amtrack to Paso Robles (or fly another leg to San Luis Obispo on one of those rickety little planes), but if you rented a car from a major airport and drove, you could stop at the Monterey Aquarium and Steinbeck Museum from the north or the Santa Barbara Mission from the south. There's also a service called The Wine Wrangler that will do pickups from the San Luis Obispo airport and drive groups around on wine and coastal tours, so no drinking and driving is required.

Frank Mecham, Paso Robles' mayor and a fifth generation resident, said 10 years ago you could throw a bowling ball downtown and not hit anyone, but that's all changed. As the wine region has grown, so has the town, from upscale, fresh- and locally- sourced restaurants like Artisan and Villa Creek to sweet little boutique hotels like Hotel Cheval to quaint, quirky shops and wine tasting rooms surrounding the town square.

The Paso Robles AVA (American Viticultural Area), established in 1983, is the largest in the county at 614,000 acres, which, along with its youth, makes the region hard to characterize. About 38 percent of its acreage is devoted to Cabernet Sauvignon, but there's a fairly large contingent of (mostly younger) winemakers bent on producing more esoteric varietals and blends from the Rhone, Italy, and Spain, including Syrah, Petite Sirah, Grenache, Malbec, Mourvedre, and Tempranillo. Some of these younger winemakers break plenty of traditional blending rules--like Joe Barton's Syrah, Zinfandel, and Petite Sirah "Chanticleer-Cuvee" blend for Grey Wolf Cellars--but in this renegade region, it works.

Continue reading "Wine (Region) of the Week: Paso Robles" after the jump.
Some call Paso Robles the Wild West of California--untamed, still developing, and in stark contrast to the poshness of Napa and Sonoma. Yet as evidence that Paso has staying power, I had a 1977 Estrella River Winery Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon courtesy of Gary Eberle, who brought one of his last three bottles (and called me a "baby" when I admitted '77 was my birth year). The Cab was still midnight dark, not the usual brick color of older wines, and the fruit was lovely, barely faded after all those years, with a tinge of green pepper.

I can't claim a favorite wine from Paso Robles except to say that, in general, I preferred the reds to the whites. I like whites that are lower in alcohol and refreshing, and Paso Robles's climate makes almost everything into a blockbuster wine (one only has to glance through Robert Parker's Paso scores for confirmation). The Cabernets are classy and decadent; Syrahs are dark and chocolaty, and red blends are innovative and provocative.

If you want to visit an up-and-coming wine region whose towns and wine still bear a mixture of rusticity and elegance, Paso Robles is a good bet. But if you can't make it out there, look for a Paso wine next time you're out shopping. Many of the boutique wineries still sell only out of the tasting room and online, but you're bound to find a good Paso selection if you look hard enough.