Wine

Published: Friday, Jul. 17, 2009

Wine Notes: Vinoteca Wine Bar

Paso wine bar gets makeover

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It was just a typical Wednesday evening for Rob and Pam Sharp late last year when they went to the Vinoteca Wine Bar in Paso Robles to support friends Jim and Maribeth Jacobsen and their winery Doce Robles.

The Jacobsen’s were pouring at the bar’s weekly Winemaker Wednesday event, and it was at that event the Sharps learned the bar had been sold and was in escrow.

“By Friday it fell out of escrow,” Pam Sharp remembers, “and by Sunday we had an offer on the table.” Their offer was accepted by owners Pete and Cynthia Reed on Monday.

“We just decided, ‘What’s the very worst that can happen?’ ” Rob remembers thinking.

The Sharps took over the popular wine destination in January this year, and have since kept some of the things that made Vinoteca a favorite local winemakers’ hangout, but they have also added features to attract a larger audience.

“What we decided to do was to take the base business of Vinoteca, and what the previous owner Cynthia had built, and grow on it,” Rob explains.

They kept the Vinoteca name, the logo, the general design inside and popular events such as Winemaker Wednesday.

What they did change immediately was the pricing, which they reduced by 25 to 50 percent across the board.

“One thing about wine people,” Rob says, “they know what things cost, and they can figure your markup. We didn’t want to gouge anybody.”

Pam also hired a new chef, Jeffry Wiesinger, to rework the menu with a focus on local produce and creative, tapas-sized items.

Wiesinger, who came to Paso Robles by way of Mammoth, had been running his own catering company in Paso Robles for 21⁄2 years.

In addition to adding dishes such as a spinach and onion tart on a crispy potato pancake and crab cakes to the cheese plates that were on the menu, Wiesinger releases his creativity on Wednesday nights when the bar offers a food and wine flight for $25.

Each of three wines is paired with a unique creation. On the standard menu, nothing is over $10.

“That’s been a tremendous success for us,” Wiesinger says, “almost everyone on Wednesday does the food pairing. The value people get is second to none.”

Live entertainment on Fridays and Saturdays and Monday night beer pairings round out the week.

The Sharps, who had no background or experience in either the retail or restaurant business, didn’t let the lack of grape growing experience slow them down either when they bought their vineyard in Paso Robles three years ago.

The couple moved from Mission Viejo in 2006 and purchased a 50-acre property near the corner of 46 West and Highway 101.

They say they were drawn to the “Mayberry-esque” quality of Paso Robles, and wanted to raise their children in a “more realistic” place than Orange County.

“These kids in Orange County have no sense of reality,” Pam says. “They had no clue that Nordstrom wasn’t the normal place of everyone to shop for clothes.”

The property had 21 acres planted mostly in the late 1980s in chardonnay. But with the help of vineyard manager Neil Roberts, they have been changing it over to cabernet sauvignon.

Since then they have been selling most of their fruit to Robert Hall and J. Lohr, but keeping more and more for their own label, Sharp’s Hill.

The winemaking for Sharp’s Hill is done by local winemaking consultants Dan Kleck of Silver Stone and Jim Hendron of Pear Valley. “We tried to find the very best talent we could to help us in the things we really knew nothing about,” Rob explains.

The couple is now making about 2,500 cases a year but hopes to expand that to more than 7,000 cases in the next four years.

They also plan to add a second label to focus on Rhone variety wines. They already have a name for that brand, Alex Spencer, named for their sons, Alex and Spencer.

Now that they own a vineyard and a wine bar, the couple admits the lifestyle change has been dramatic.

“We made more friends in Paso in 30 days than we made in Orange County in five years,” Pam says.

When they moved in it was the middle of harvest, Pam says, and other neighboring winemakers came out of the woodwork to help them with the work.

While Pam no longer teaches, as she had in Orange County, Rob still does consulting work for the insurance industry, “But it’s just an occupation, and I’ve been doing it for a really long time,” Rob explains. “My heart is really here doing this.”

Vinoteca Wine Bar

835 12th St., Paso Robles, 227-7154

Hours: 4 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 4 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Closed Sunday.

Sharp’s Hill Vineyard

Cases produced: 2,500 in 2008

Owners: Rob and Pamela Sharp

Online: www.vinotecawinebar.com

Janis Switzer can be reached at 434-5394 or via e-mail at janisswitzer@yahoo.com.