Oh yes, it was time to head back down to Paso again and pick up my spring wineclub at Midnight, so we packed the pug in the car and headed back down south for some fun. There was an art festival going on in the main square, so hotels were all full and we just managed to pick off the last room in Paso that was dog friendly (albeit incredibly shabby, unbelievably overpriced and a smoking room to boot!), and headed out into the becoming-familiar 46 West for a few stops. The objective was not to pick up and go: I wanted to stop, taste and enjoy. Get to know the place and the wines better. I think we made some serious headway toward meeting this objective on this trip. Let me share...The first stop was our little patch of heaven on Anderson Road: Caliza at the end of the road. The now familiar site of winemaker/owner Carl Bowker pouring behind the bar greeted us when we walked in, as well as the same woman who poured for us last year. We noticed they started up their wineclub, and released the 2007 vintages of the Azimuth, Companion and Syrah, as well as a rose for 2008. We got a couple of glasses and had a taste of the Pink which is indeed a pink blend of grnache, tempranillio and syrah new for 2009. It's drier than one might expect, although I suppose one can hardly expect something ordinary and grandma-sweet to come out of Caliza. Onto the 2008 Kissin Cousins, their white Rhone blend with Viognier, Rousanne and Grenache Blanc. Accolades are no stranger to Caliza, and this one was awarded 91 points by Wine Spectator. I can see why, it's delightful. The 2007 Companion was totally different from the 2006, as the blend is different, but the same earthy savor and lush richness that I recall from all of Bowker's wines. I had high expectations from the Azimuth, my favorite from 2006, and the blend for the 2007 is again completely different. Once again, I was blown away. I think I like the 2006 better, but still ended up buying a bunch of the 07s to stash, as this has some serious longevity in that bottle.
The next stop was the much anticipated Booker. Booker is right next door to Caliza, and like Caliza, uses much the same varietals since their estates are on the same hill, right next to eachother. The blends are even similar. Now Booker has a reputation, of course, for being a real paradise for wine snobbery, those drinkers who fancy themselves serious oenophiles flock here and Booker has a waiting list two years long before you can even get in the club, and they are so small production that they sell out every year and close the tasting room shortly after opening. The Azimuth and the Alchemist are practically the same blend, and pretty much the same grapes (we're looking right at them) but what one notices with Booker is the soft, refined elegance of the winemaking in all of their wines. The reds are big, wonderful and rich, and after trying the Fracture, Vertigo and Alchemist, the Alchemist was my favorite.
The overall experience wasn't great, however. There were a bunch of 30 somethings from the city in there and one musclehead repeating that he was in the club about 14 times so why didn't his shipment come through? And the two women behind the counter pouring, while very nice to my dog, said they don't comp tastings for anyone outside of Paso when I plopped down my Imagery card, then recanted and said "Oh, okay. I like you guys." The pours were very hands-off, and any questions I asked were generally ignored or got some uneducated, base answer. These two twenty-something beauties were long on skin and cleavage but short on knowledge and the overall atmosphere felt a bit full of itself. Our tasting coming to a close and our glasses going long stretches of empty before the next taste, a tattooed man came in and helped pour, and I tuned out the club at the other end of the bar as he poured and gave a great lesson on Booker and the wines to several newcomers at our end of the room.
We bought just under a case, got charged for the tastings anyways, and left when the winery dog, Brutus, started humping the pug and the pug wanted to rip him to shreds right there in the tasting room.
I think Larry said it best when he looked at me over the Azimuth with aquamarine musclehead dissed-clubmember whining in the background and said "Caliza is just a bit more rogue, and I like that in a wine."
Ibid.
Onto Midnight, where our familiar face Nicole from the tasting room greeted us on entry. She's very knowledgeable about the wines, and is generally a good pour. She remembered me when we came in, and said "You're here to pick up your wine club, right?" Then made mention of the last time we were down there and got us two glasses. Midnight Cellars is an old farmhouse, the tasting room in the middle of a living room that feels like your mother's living room- a little outdated in the decor, flowery and light, and comfortable. The wines are not winning any medals for being aggressively big reds, but wine high points for good customer service, Nicole who has an uncanny memory for faces, and deliciously approachable, drinkable wines you may (or may not) mind sharing. We went down the whole menu, chatted and enjoyed being in a more intimate environment. We talked about the nesting birds under the eaves and watched a mother sparrow feed a teeny little beaked head peeking out from the bracken nest while we sipped on the 2005 Necatris (love that stuff!) and the new Zins. Nicole customized my case a bit, and by the time we left is was just me, Larry, the pug, Nicole and the other woman behind the bar.
Smiles on faces and a second case now in the trunk, we turned right back onto 46 and just up the hill a stone's throw away, we stopped in at Grey Wolf. I have a little foil opener from Grey Wolf, although I don't ever remember being there before. We pulled into what looks like another old teeny farmhouse on the top of a hill, with great landscaping that Charmey promptly decided to do some business in. I didn't catch him in time to move him to some less conspicuous place... And in we went. The tasting room was bustling. It's teeny, and the space is definitely a bit Little-House-On-The-Prairie-ish, but up to the bar we went. We got a very warm welcome, a couple of glasses, and went through the menu. Grey Wolf is another family owned winery, and they make some great tasting, easy drinking wines. We went down the menu and what really stood out for me was the "Red Table Wine": the 2009 Lone Wolf blend of Cab Sauv, Zin, Grenache and Syrah and at a whopping $15 a bottle it's one of Paso's best values overall in my book. We bought another case, most of it the Lone Wolf, after finishing the menu and our lovely pour. Last stop of the day, we drove into the driveway of this sterile, brand-new huge complex called "Niner" but left when we thought they appeared to be closed or closing for the evening. We were on the fence about going back. Instead, we stopped into Red Soles just as they were closing, but they were still pouring for a not-too-quiet crowd in there. The woman behind the bar was so wonderful to us- "Oh! Sure, you can taste, but I closed the register, so I just can't sell you anything. But I'm happy to pour for you if you like." We cracked up, agreed that we would come back if we wanted to buy anything, and got started with a couple of glasses. The tasting room here is small, and the other woman behind the bar was the owner Cheryl Phillips. She noticed the pug, who was barking at a couple of the rowdy guys behind us, and disappeared into her barrel room (just behind the bay door in the tasting room) and grabbed him a red Red Soles bandanna, left over from a private dinner event they had the night before. We put it on the Charmer, who loves to wear anything, and instantly warmed to this intimate, beautiful tasting room with wines as lovely as the women pouring for us.
It was the end of the day here, and while we did a lot of spitting, it still catches up with you. We loved the wines- estate produced, lots of blends, lots of big flavor and easy drinking here. We tried several and while there were some we wanted to buy, kept our promise and left empty handed and very satisfied.
Now, when I was up at Imagery a few weeks ago, a customer came in and we got to talking about wines, and some Paso wines specifically. He gave me a few tips on where to find a Lagrein down there, and the names of a few places I might want to check out. We plotted our course on the map for the following day. Nicole has recommended Caparone for some earthy, "hands-off" wines, and Malloy-O'Neill was on the list for having a Lagrein. RN Cellars, another one my customer recommended, is appointment-only, so we missed them. I also noticed that there was a biodynamic appellation in Paso- so we HAD to go there.
First stop was down on 46 W at Donati Family Winery, where we were not the first people in the tasting room at 10:30am. There was a professor of asian studies in there, talking about dogs and an attack cat that she had living in her house who used to slice the necks of dogs passing by in stealth mode like a ninja. She was colorful. We got a really nice pour here. They had a couple of late harvests that we liked a lot, and Larry took home a bottle of the late harvest Cab Franc.
After Donati, Larry imposed a 5-winery limit on our outing for the day, since we had to drive back to San Francisco, and I appointed him driver. We decided to try out AmByth, the biodynamic winery in Paso on the way over to the 46East stops. On the way, we tried to stop again in Niner, and the not so-good feeling we had of entering some kind of mall were entirely justified... we parked and brought the dog into the massive main building, and were greeted with an uber-sleek slate interior that was massive and cavernous with a very posh crowd gathered at the tasting bar, and stopped to check out a display about their wines on our right as we entered and almost immediately were met by a rotund, nicely dressed manager who let us know that since food was prepared on the premises, no dogs were allowed inside. We smiled, said "Oh, sure," turned around and walked straight out the doors we had just entered never to come back to Niner again. This seemed to be great justification to the bad feelings we both had percolating inside as soon as we drove through the gates.
Toting themselves as "super premium" wines, Niner is what we anticipated it was: some hugely wealthy guy's foray into winemaking upon his retiring from the business world. Not exactly family run, time honored, "gritty" winemaking here. "Super premium," in my opinion, isn't something that you can dub yourself: it's something we dub for you. Niner didn't even make it to my base list, let alone any kind of accolade.
We ambled over this middle-of-nowhere road with more sheep than people, onto this crazy odd little two lane country road also in the middle of nowhere. No signs. Constantly checking and re-checking the map, we saw signs for a few other wineries, but no AmByth. We then looked closer at the paragraph about them in the Paso brochure and it's appointment only. Since we were basically somewhere near, and had wasted a good 40 minutes trying to find the place, we called them. I'm so glad we did.
"Hello?"
"Hi, we were looking for AmByth winery."
"Oh! Yes, this is AmByth."
Larry: "We were hoping to be able to come in for a tasting."
"Well, the owners are out of town in Spain right now, but I'm watching the estate and I can help you, can you give me about a half an hour and I'll meet you there?"
He gave us the numeric key for the gate, and let us know that indeed, that dirt private drive where the lovely chestnut mare was grazing in the paddock at the end of the road was the road up to the estate. We had a half an hour to kill, so a few hundred feet away we stopped at Pomar Junction Winery. It looked a little hokey, with an old caboose in the yard, and we discovered that it's not a family winery, which was a bit of a turn off, and the wines were pretty forgettable. After wasting our 20 minutes, we drove back up the dirt road, more confident this time, and found the estate gate to AmByth as promised. The code opened the gate, and we drove past the couple of cows laying under the nearby tree for a bit of shade. Up a steep hill on the dirt road we drove through the windy path through the vines until we reached the house on the very top of the hill, with amazing views of Paso all around us. We parked, and a lovely man carrying a tray of snacks gave us a very warm welcome at the back door and ushered us into the Barrel/Production/Storage/Tasting Room at AmByth. We met the massive black family dog named Zorro, and Charm was already too tired to make much fuss, so he plopped down on the cool floor as Brian introduced himself and got us started.
AmByth is a Welsh word meaning "Forever" and was started by Phillip and Mary Hart. They are a teeny production estate winery, all biodynamic, and all charm. We were completely seduced. Brian walked us around the estate, showed us the estate, the vines, and talked about the wines. Phillip and Mary have a very small production, and don't yet use any outside labor to help with production, they have good friends like Brian who come by and help with the harvesting and general winemaking. They recently started a wine club and they have a wonderful blog about their estate, wines and farming practices.
One of the funniest things on the trip was the discussion with Brian about where we'd been in
Paso so far, and a bit about our experiences. We mentioned that we tried to go into Niner, without much detail and we knew this was the right place when Brian said "Did you feel like your soul got sucked out as you went through the gates?"Lol! Why yes, we did!
We tasted down the menu, and it hit me there and then like some kind of lightening bolt: this is what it is to be biodynamic. I have long wondered at my ability to just pick out Imagery and Benziger wines from any other wines... there is something in the nose, in the color, in the mouth and on the finish, some quality that permeates the wine like nothing else and is a kind of signature to the wines that is so specific... it's the biodynamic production. AmByth wines were all the same way: not the same quality, not even close, but you can smell the cows laying under the tree on the way into the estate, you can smell the earth, the terroir, the heat in Paso and the bees all in one very distinct signature that permeates every wine in a way that each one in unmistakeably AmByth. We were charmed, delighted, and left with not just a great feeling but a wine club membership and the feeling that whatever was going on here, we wanted in.
Each wine was seductive, earthy, wonderful: the Mouvedre, the Grenache, the Venustas and the Validas.
Back on the road, we drove up to Maloy O'Neill to try their wines, specifically the Lagrein that I drove all this way to get to. The estate is really lovely, they have a pretty tasting room and we bought a really cool wine poster with basically all the grapes in order of genetic lineage.
The experience here wasn't all that great. They have a million wines, but I have a bias against places declining to pour things that they'll sell to you. Why can't I try it? So they only had a few of their more basic wines open, they didn't welcome us and they didn't offer to open or let us try some of the more premium wines, even after I let them know I was industry. So my impression wasn't all that positive, and the wines were basic and generally forgettable. The Lagrein was open from a group they had the previous day, so she did pour that for us, but that was the only one not on the tasting menu we were offered. We left, unimpressed. If you do 100 things, can you really say you do all of them well? I'm not sure. Smaller production, super fine, and "gritty" still gets my vote.
Ah, Paso. And there is so much, much more...
