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INFLUENCERS OF PASO ROBLES Wine, Dine, Recline PASO WINE COUNTRY OFFERS SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE by Michael Cervin PHOTO: MICHAEL CERVIN action. He planted 130 acres on a 600-foot ridge top and his Rhône-style wines hit the market in 2009. "At the time we planted I believed, due to our climate and soils, that in a few decades Paso Robles would be Rhône country." While Rhônes are on the rise in Paso, it's too early to tell whether his hunch was correct; but his bright Viognier, GSMs and complex Syrahs are rich, seductive Bob and Maggie Tillman of Alta and linger on the palate. Colina. Alta Colina makes only 1,200 cases, but they represent how comprehensive and spot-on Rhône varieties can be in Paso. As for Cabernet Sauvignon, Tillman wishes his neighbors well but believes making Cabernet the signature wine for Paso Robles is like "pushing a rock up a steep hill." It's the rolling hills of Paso, not the steep ones, where Cabernet has long been the workhorse of Paso, and new plantings of innovative clonal selection (clones 338, 685, 412) are reversing the old trend of vast commercial plantings meant merely to increase yields. A handful of renegades here are gunning for Napa's Cab crown. L'Aventure started the Cabernet ball rolling long before most anyone had heard of Paso Robles. French transplant Stephen Stephan Asseo, owner and Asseo believed in the region's winemaker at L'Aventure. remote back-country where he began crafting Cabernet the likes of which the Central Coast had never seen before. Though trained in France on a Saint-Émilion grand cru property, Paso Robles offered Stephan "more creative freedom," he says. His wines, built for cellaring, are beautiful expressions of Cabernet and blends and start with a plantation density of 2,200 vines per acre. L'Aventure sits in an amphitheater of mild hills, uses only estate fruit and farms biodynamically, though they are nei- PHOTO: ROB BROWN Affable Bill Tillman of Alta Colina Winery took a wine appreciation class in 1971 and "got the wine bug." Some 50 years later, his plan of making wine was finally put into PHOTO: MICHAEL CERVIN Anthony Yount, the young charismatic winemaker for Denner Vineyards and his own Koinero label, is proving that Rhônes in general, and Grenache Blanc in particular, can drive market forces. For many of his Denner wines, including the highly lauded Ditch Digger, Yount uses native Anthony Yount, winemaker at yeasts, minimal oak and Denner Vineyards. gets fruit so complex you'd swear it had been tampered with. But it is with the more obsure Grenache Blanc that he is truly innovative. Yount has become a disciple of concrete fermenters. "Grenache Blanc is very hollow as a variety—it's all up front and on the back end, but lacks texture. I was looking to make it richer without ML or RS," he says. The concrete gives Grenache Blanc an "oily, tactile expression," Yount admits. "I'm looking for ethereal components with huge richness on the palate without being gloppy." His wines are supple, powerful yet balanced. "I think Paso will be best known for Grenache and Mourvèdre when the dust settles," Yount believes. PHOTO: JEREMY BALL AmByth (a Welsh term meaning "forever") Estates is the only Demeter certified biodynamic winery in the area. Considered a novelty by some and voodoo farming by others, the proof of biodynamics is in the wine. "There's something about Paso and Rhône varietals, because of our limestone—it brings out the acids especially in the whites," winemaker Phillip Hart says. Producing Grenache Blanc, Counoise and Mourvèdre, among others, Hart's acid-driven wines "multitask on the tongue," as he puts it. "We live in our land, the vineyard surrounds us; there's no way we were going to be spraying chemicals our children couldn't breathe." At their best AmByth's wines are pure expressions of Paso Robles limestone soil. PHOTO: JEREMY BALL BIG AND BOLD 82 the tasting panel / 82 / the tasting panel / january 2014 TP0114_66-108.indd 82 12/19/13 9:47 PM