This weekend, Paso Robles is celebrating its 26th annual Wine Festival, and nearly 100 wineries are expected to pour. Close to 180 wineries are now producing in the Paso Robles area, and the growth in the quantity of wineries—and the quality of wine coming out of the region—has surprised just about everybody.
It all began when music industry veterans John D’Andrea and Carmine Rubino were looking for a retreat from Los Angeles for their large extended family.
This weekend, as Rhône wine producers from around the world converge in Paso Robles for the 16th annual Hospice du Rhône, Cris Cherry will be serving many of them dinner at his well-known Paso Robles restaurant, Villa Creek.
J. Lohr Vineyards&Wines is one of the oldest and largest wineries in Paso Robles, and it takes its leadership in the industry very seriously—especially when it comes to sustainable agriculture.
Founded by Jerry Lohr in the mid-1970s in Monterey County, the winery expanded to Paso Robles in 1986 with the purchase of more than 800 acres near the Paso Robles airport.
Glenn Bianchi, owner of Bianchi Winery & Tasting Room, has a large and diverse real estate empire. Among his holdings is the 45-acre Paramount swap meet, an 11-theater movie complex and multiple commercial buildings in Southern California.
This Easter weekend is a special time for local winemakers for several different reasons. They may celebrate with family at church Sunday, watch the warm spring weather wake up the vines, or ponder an answer to the elusive question, “What wine does go best with baked ham?” But for one winemaker, the significance of the religious holiday goes much further.
Jim Norman isn’t your typical winemaker. With colorful tattoos running up his arms, long and flowing hair, and a Harley-Davidson logo on the back of his T-shirt, Norman seems more suited for a motorcycle rally than a wine tasting room.
T his weekend, more than 180 wineries from around the world, along with a couple thousand grateful pinot noir enthusiasts, will gather in Shell Beach for the seventh annual World of Pinot Noir event. Among the wineries pouring at this event — one of the largest for pinot noir in the country — is Edna Valley’s Kynsi Winery. Making just 3,000 cases of wine annually, Kynsi isn’t a famous name in the world of pinot, but the legacy of its owners surely is.
S ome people become winery owners in the most unexpected ways. David and Andrea Bradford were enjoying an easy afternoon of wine tasting in Santa Barbara County in October 2006 when they walked into the Morovino tasting room in Solvang.
For years, Steve Lock knew that he was growing good grapes. After all, wineries such as Talley Vineyards, Four Vines Winery, Linne Calodo Cellars, Norman Vineyards and Chateau Margene were seeking the cabernet sauvignon, syrah and zinfandel fruit that he was meticulously growing on his West-side vineyard in Paso Robles. He also
W hen Ron Valtierra, Bob Crossman and Brian Bronson joined three years ago to start a company that supplies corrugated boxes to the wine industry, they started with one truck, one driver and a 21,000- square-foot warehouse.
