Larry and I decided to take a little mini vacation to test the water and see if we could stand to be with eachother uninterrupted for a whopping 72 hours. This seems comical, but for those of you young pups who started out living with other people from a young age, this is not so simple after time... For the past 15 (plus, although the plus is more Larry than me, thank you) years we have essentially lived with nobody but ourselves. You become- how to say- stodgy about how things are done in the home. To test this water, we put a toe in and decided to road-trip down to Paso Robles, where I could further immerse Larry into my wine indulgence. He'd so far been a quick study, although who doesn't like wine??
There is a long and tensioned history of Us-Versus-Them between those of us who work in Sonoma and those of us who work in Napa. Sonoma lovers are somewhat sanctimonious about Sonoma being mainly family-run and owned wineries, like the one I work for, Benzinger. We frown on Napa valley for its Disney-esq monied mega-mansion winery storefronts that are all owned, operated and paid for by mega corporations. Basically from Napa all the way up the main drag to Healdsburg it's one huge conglomerate corporation-run wine "experience." While the quality is undisputed for many of these places (I love many of them- Montelena, Franciscan, etc), I dont like the idea that Nestle Corporation is getting my money for that $55 cabernet. The best part about Sonoma is that it's smaller, much more spread out, and mainly family run. This is even more so the case in a place like Paso Robles. It's small, it's in the middle of nowhere, really, it's got a ton of little wineries most of which are still family-owned and operated, with the occasional mega-production house that makes millions of cases per annum. And, Imagery gets many of our grapes from vineyards down there. It was time to visit. And Larry had never been there.
Off of highway 101 is highway 46, there is an east and a west 46- both have wineries all over the place. We went down to 46 West and there were two names on the winery map that caught my eye, and they both happened to be next to eachother that I thought were worth a visit: Dark Star Cellars and Midnight Cellars.
Our first stop was Dark Star, which has a tasting room located in a charming little barn-type structure, and we were met with pretty art-glass pot lights over the bar and an ageing boxer serving as welcome committee. Behind the bar in the tasting room is Susan Beson, wife of Norm Benson, the wine maker. They started Dark Star in 1994 and have a very small production of 4,000 cases a year. Norm wanted to focus on finely crafted big reds, which he felt were "dark stars." We enjoyed our tasting with Susan, buying a few bottles of the signature Bordeaux-style blend they produce called Recordati. The 2005 Ricordati is a lovely blend of CabSauv, Merlot, Cab Franc, Malbec and Verdot.
Susan encouraged us to walk through a little doorway to a second tasting room in the same building as Dark Star's where Susan and Norm's son opened his own tasting room. Brian Benson's tasting room reflects his younger age (26!) with vivid red walls and pictures of classic muscle cars all over the place. Brian himself was pouring for us. Brian Benson Cellars began in 2000 and has slowly increased its production since. He released a syrah in 2005 that we tasted that was like nothing I've ever had before- it was the smokiest syrah I've ever had- it is sultry and you can just taste and feel the smoke on the nose and the palate. His first big release, this won a gold medal as a total unheard-of underdog in a wine competition (I don't remember which). We bought a few bottles of that and headed up the little narrow Anderson Road to Midnight Cellars. Another barn in the parking lot, and in visible distance to Dark Star, the barn has barrels upon barrels. The tasting room is in a house-like structure where you're greeted by a somewhat skittish long haired calico cat and a quiet tasting room.
I was very pleasantly surprised by Midnight. They also try for big reds- they are also a family run and owned enterprise, and the woman pouring for us gave us a very nice tasting. I ended up joining the platinum wine club and left with an assorted case. They have several Zins which are lovely- and some other very cool things on the menu. They produced a discreet Petite Verdot that was fabulous, and a Bordeaux style blend (their flagship) called "Mare Nectaris" which is a blend of all 5 Bordeaux usuals. It's lovely. The Hartenberger family started midnight in 1995 and have been making small production big wines since to many accolades. Currently, they make about 8,000 cases annually. I decided to join the winery but opted for pick up since I thought it would be nice to take a little trip a couple times a year down here to do some more exploring...
On this trip, these 3 wineries were about all we could manage before having to find a place to set up camp for the night. We opened a great bottle of one of the day's catches, I introduced Larry to the amazing Chili-Cheese-Mac, played some football, and fell asleep. The rest of the weekend (one day, really) was in Monterey, which is still probably my favorite place in the state- we went whale watching and felt like I had the gentle sea-gods giving me good karma by showing up in spades for us- breaching, jumping, mothers with calves, playing with dolphins, it was just fantastic.
Oh, and it's not "Paso Roblays," it's "Paso Robels."
