3 new wine tasting rooms open in Avila and Edna Valley
Avila and Edna Valley now offer three new spots to taste wine, with the relocation of two wineries and one newcomer.
Biddle Ranch Vineyard debuted its new tasting room on 20 acres on Biddle Ranch Road in the heart of Edna Valley last week. The newly built tasting room joins a swank vacation home that the partners remodeled and began renting out two years ago. The partners are Patricia and Mark Woolpert, CEO of Compass Health; AJ Contractor’s Supply owner Led Fortini; interior designer Anne Fortini; Tracy and John Ronca; and Linda and Roy Rawlings.
The modern farmhouse-style tasting room overlooks two outdoor areas with plenty of seating as well as 17 acres of estate chardonnay vines, with a view of the old barn featured on the wine labels in the distance.
The winery currently features more than a dozen wines made by winemaker Ryan Deovlet. But it will whittle that list to focus more on pinot noir and chardonnay, including a new, bright offering from the estate grapes, said tasting room manager Sara Kreowski.
Biddle Ranch, which operated a tasting room in the old Avila Valley schoolhouse for about 18 months, is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Monday at 2050 Biddle Ranch Road, with the possibility of opening seven days a week by spring. Tasting is $15 for five wines, waived with three-bottle purchase.
Taking over the old schoolhouse space at 6985 Ontario Road is Silver Horse Winery, which the Kroener family had operated in San Miguel for 18 years until selling the property in 2014. Son Stephen Kroener, who had assumed the winemaking, produced small amounts of wine out of borrowed space at Barton Family Wines on Highway 46 West — where he also collaborates with Joe Barton on Krobar Distillery — before moving into the schoolhouse space a couple of months ago.
Kroener scrapped earlier plans to launch a second label alongside Silver Horse, deciding instead to focus on the established brand. The tasting room, open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday, offers a unique “you-pick” tasting format in which customers choose which five wines they’d like to taste for $12 from a pamphlet with detailed descriptions of the winery’s 15 wines. The format has been popular with couples and groups and has increased sales, especially of library wines, according to tasting room staff.
The tasting room embraces its schoolhouse past, with chalkboard walls and historic photos from the classroom. A second room is slated to become a gourmet deli operated by Custom House owners Compass Health Inc. sometime after the new year. Out back, there’s a large patio where Kroener plans to offer live music. With the location at the start of the Bob Jones trail into Avila Beach, Kroener also hopes to bring in electric bike rentals by the spring.
At the other end of the bike trail in Avila Beach, a new winery opened in September. Croma Vera, owned by Mindy Oliver and husband Chris Steins, specializes in Spanish varietals made by Oliver and Jeremy Leffert, also the winemaker for Paso Robles’ Tooth & Nail Winery.
In a large, living room-style space offering free Wi-Fi, Oliver pours the young winery’s tempranillo rosé, albariño and tempranillo joven as well as barrel samples of grenache and a red blend that will be released in January or February.
The tempranillo joven is a young wine, similar to a Beaujolais Nouveau, that sees just four months in the barrel. “It really emphasizes the fruit,” said Oliver, who will eventually add a more traditional aged tempranillo as well as a cabernet sauvignon. “It’s a great turkey wine, or with pork chops.”
The winery’s name, loosely translated from Latin as “true colors,” reflects Oliver’s background in art and graphic design as well as the minimal-intervention approach that allows the vineyard to show through, he said.
The tasting room at 445 First St. — offering tastings for $10, with a cheese pairing for an additional $10 — is open noon to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, Monday and Thursday.
Sally Buffalo writes about wine, beer and spirits. Reach her at sallybuffalo@gmail.com or on Twitter @sallybuffalo.
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This story was originally published November 24, 2016 at 4:58 PM with the headline "3 new wine tasting rooms open in Avila and Edna Valley."