Wine Notes: Paso Robles’ 26th annual Wine Festival

A world of wine in Paso

By Janis Switzer

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 has also attracted a number of very accomplished winemakers to the area, some from parts of the world that have been making wine for centuries.

Here are six of those extraordinarily talented people bringing their international experience and perspective to the Paso Robles blend.

FRANCE

STEPHAN ASSEO

L’AVENTURE WINERY www.aventurewine.com Stephan Asseo set out on the “adventure of a lifetime,” when he, wife Beatrice and their three children left their Bordeaux home for the “wild West” of Paso Robles.

With 17 vintages behind him in France, Asseo searched for a place where he could free himself from rigid French appellation controls.

After traveling through the Mediterranean, South Africa and finally California, he found the terroir he was looking for—as well as the freedom to follow his instincts in winemaking — in Westside Paso Robles.

He purchased his 126-acre Templeton Gap property in 1997, and for the next decade poured every penny and ounce of energy he had into making a world-class winery.

The hard work has paid off with acclaim from national and international wine critics.

Last year he was recognized as Winemaker of the Year by the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance and was named one of the Top 100 Vintners in the United States by the Robb Report.

AUSTRALIA

CHRIS CAMERON

SUMMERWOOD WINERY www.summerwoodwine.com The day Chris Cameron came to Paso Robles last year to work as the head winemaker for Summerwood Winery, the town celebrated with fireworks. Well, it was July Fourth, but with characteristic Aussie humor, Cameron enjoys the coincidence.

Cameron has more than 30 vintages of experience in wineries in Australia, Turkey, Lebanon, Italy and now California.

With a master’s degree in wine from the University of Western Sydney, Cameron has established an impressive career, both as a winemaker and as a wine competition judge and wine educator.

Over his 15-plus year career, Cameron has earned more than 70 trophies and 600 medals from wine competitions worldwide, and he has judged more than 60 wine competitions himself.

At Summerwood for almost a year now, Cameron is focused on expanding the winery’s reputation for quality, with an emphasis on “structure” and “varietal definition.”

Producing just 4,800 cases a year allows him to focus on individual vineyard blocks and each special blend — a luxury he didn’t have at Pepper Tree Wines in Australia, where he made up to 135,000 cases in one year.

Though he jokes he doesn’t have enough to do these days, he clearly enjoys the pace of life here and the team he’s part of at Summerwood.

SWITZERLAND

MATTHIAS GUBLER

VINA ROBLES www.vinarobles.com Born in northwest Switzerland and raised amid his family’s pinot noir vineyard, it is no surprise that Matthias Gubler pursued winemaking as a career. What is surprising is the far-reaching wine regions in which the 33-year old has so far honed his experience.

In 1994, Gubler first left Switzerland for Northern California to work the harvest at Brutocao Cellars in Hopland under Nancy Walker.

He returned home the following year to work at the St. Martinskellerei Winery in Valais, gaining experience in the cellar and the vineyards.

Gubler next enrolled in the enology program at the College of Wadenswil near Zurich, which took

him through harvests in the Cotes du Rhône in France as well as for two Italian producers in the heart of Chianti.

Gubler was tapped by Vina Robles owner Hans Nef in 1999 to lead the winemaking program at the winery he was building in Paso Robles.

Since then he has brought his blend of New World and Old World winemaking to the growing winery and has gained significant acclaim along the way.

Vina Robles opened its 14,000-square-foot hospitality and tasting room facility nine months ago and is producing about 20,000 cases a year.

SOUTH AFRICA

LOOD KOTZE

CASS WINERY www.casswines.com At the age of 28, South African native Lood Kotze already has eight vintages of experience in winemaking in wine regions as diverse as California, South Africa and Adelaide, Australia.

He came to Paso Robles in 2005 as part of an international exchange program after earning his graduate degree in enology from the University of Stellenbosch.

Working at Cass Winery under the supervision of local winemaker Dan Kleck, he returned a year later as part of the same program. Owner Steve Cass offered him a permanent position as head winemaker in February 2007.

With annual production of just 5,500 cases, Kotze is able to practice the same type of small batch winemaking he learned at five different wineries in South Africa.

He also brought with him an elegant style that is common in South African wines —a style Cass was specifically looking for in a winemaker. In only its fourth year, Cass Winery is as early in its development as Kotze is, so the winemaker and winery owner are excited to grow together.

FRANCE

ROGER NICOLAS

RN ESTATE www.rnestate.com Before moving to Paso Robles and learning to make wine, French-born Roger Nicolas had a long and successful career in the restaurant and hospitality industry.

After working in some of the most prestigious restaurants in the U. S., including La Grenouille in New York City, The Lodge at Pebble Beach and L’Etoile in San Francisco, Nicolas eventually opened his own San Francisco restaurant, and gained international acclaim as the founder and owner of what is now a famous Relais and Chateaux inn in New Hampshire.

Then, at the age of 50, Nicolas decided to pursue another dream of his—having a small vineyard. On a drive down Highway 101, he found that vineyard property on a hilltop along the Estrella River Valley in 1995.

He proceeded to take as many courses in viticulture and winemaking as he could, and he planted a 3½-acre vineyard with red Rhone varieties.

Making just under 1,000 cases a year, his production is an ultra-small lot—sometimes producing only 40 cases of a varietal at a time.

The first 2003 vintage of RN Estate was released in 2005 and immediately sold out.

He does virtually all of the work of running the winery himself, acting as vineyard manager, sales manager and winemaker, depending on the day or the hour. And he says he is delighted to be living his dream.

CANADA

LISA PRETTY

PRETTY-SMITH VINEYARDS AND WINERY www.prettysmith.com It was not wine that attracted Lisa Pretty to California from Canada — it was the high-tech industry.

The Newfoundland native with a computer science degree moved to Silicon Valley in the mid-1990s, but it was her eventual exposure to Northern California wineries that started her new career.

With her only winemaking experience coming from a home kit in college, Pretty started looking for a property in Napa, Sonoma and Monterey.

After almost giving up in 2000, she found an 80-acre property on North River Road about eight miles north of downtown Paso Robles, and she made an offer the day after seeing it.

Pretty is almost a legend among local winemakers for being a “one-woman show,” doing all the vineyard work (including pruning and harvesting), winemaking, crushing, blending and even cleaning tanks—by herself.

She works seven days a week and only takes time off during the winter. Pretty- Smith produces about 2,500 cases a year.

OTHERS

In addition to these winemakers, there are several I didn’t have room to include, including Terry Culton of Adelaida Cellars (Canada), Mauricio Marchant of Arroyo Robles (Chile), and of course the Perrin Family, French partners in the Tablas Creek Vineyard.

And we in Paso Robles wine country hope there are many more to come.

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