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.
What Can I Get You Folks? - Eating Out for Thanksgiving
In Defense of Guy Fieri
'Top Chef Vegas' - And Then There Were Five
