JUSTIN

JUSTIN Vineyards & Winery is one of the staples of the Paso Robles wine country. It's been around since 1981 and there's always something new whether it's a restaurant, a hotel, or a wine. This is one of the few wineries that people have not only heard of before coming here, but they've actually purchased and tasted a bottle of JUSTIN wine. Despite being at the end of a long, windy 25 minute drive out Chimney Rock Road hordes of people visit the JUSTIN facilities 7 days a week.

For most who have tasted at JUSTIN, they've been to the building just past Carmody-McKnight. Usually you'll be greeted by one of the winery dogs, which by the way have their own section of the JUSTIN website (http://www.justinwine.com/). This building houses a reception desk for those staying at the JUST Inn (get it? It's an inn...at JUSTIN?!), Deborah's Room-the fancy restaurant that's open for lunch and dinner (reservations recommended of course), and the tasting room. For those of us who aren't in the wine club, we stand at one of the counters in the tasting room and taste a few of JUSTIN's standard wines. To taste their top-of-the-line wines you have to be part of the JUSTIN Wine Society. And, as a wine club member, not only can you taste the award-winning Justification and Isosceles blends, but you can do so in their wine-club-only tasting room (on the ground floor of the Isosceles Center), which is located in an entirely different building farther down Chimney Rock Road.

While you don't get the exclusive club-member service at the regular tasting room you will at least get a chance to taste the wines in a room with Medieval Times-esque decor (and who doesn't love faux-medieval decor?). The walls as you approach the counters shelves on either side house an array of JUSTIN wines. For some crazy reason I always imagine each section on those walls being marked with a triangular flag...you know those flags that hang off the horn of one of those breeches-clad medieval horn-blower guys as he announces the arrival of the king! I know that sounds crazy but that's just what I think of!! And even though there aren't any triangular-horn-flags there should be! Anyway, the borderline over-the-top design at JUSTIN (both imaginary and actual decor!) only gets crazier when you leave the regular tasting room and head back to the winery and and the club-member tasting room where you sit on couches and get served your flight.

Overall, I've had actively positive tasting experiences at JUSTIN. The main issue I've had is that it gets quite busy. Luckily there's a little picnic area out front (often where the dogs hang out) so you can step outside if there are too many people. The only other complaint I have is the fact that any old person can't walk in and taste everything. Hearing so much about wines I've never tasted in the tasting room gives me mixed feelings. Part of me wants access to those wines, which is motivation to join the wine club. But then I remember that those wines are $50 a bottle so the wine club would drive me even more quickly towards poverty!! Then the other part of me just feels annoyed...they want me to drive all the way out there? And pay to taste wines that aren't necessarily their best? Mixed feelings...that's what I have!!

Now this is the part I've been waiting to talk about! If you have a reason to go around to this other entrance you must do so (I think you can sign up for a winery tour that will get you back there). You'll enter through a massive and quite grandiose gate and then cruise down a quarter of a mile and then see some giant buildings. This might not happen to you, but these building made quite an impression on me! First, imagine a big top circus. Next, imagine an Italian villa. And finally, combine the big top circus with the Italian villa (you have to think of really classy versions of a circus and a villa) and add a bit of that Medieval Times feel and voila!-you have a perfect vision of the JUSTIN compound that houses the winery, event space, corporate offices, and, among other things, the club tasting room.

While I poke fun at the decorative choices at JUSTIN I'm always amazed at the thoroughness and quality of everything at the winery. From the facilites, to the staff, to the printed materials, everything at JUSTIN in done right. The proprietors, Debbie and Justin Baldwin, clearly have an incredible knack for marketing and it shows. These two seem to be more entrepeneurs than just winery owners. They keep adding new projects like the restaurant, the inn, and the second tasting room. While these are choices I probably wouldn't make if I had a wildly succesful wine label I can't help but respect their total dedication to both JUSTIN Vineyards & Winery and the overall development of the Paso Robles wine community. The Baldwins go above and beyond for their employees and they readily participate in local charities. Basically Debbie and Justin Baldwin are completely on top of their game. They do everything with an unfaltering level of quality that I really admire. The wines at JUSTIN are all high quality and the highest echelon of their offerings, Justification and Isosceles, have been recognized by critics for years. So if you couldn't tell from my effusive description of the couple behind JUSTIN, I think you have to go to JUSTIN at least once. If you go and don't love it that's fine...in fact that's the whole point of wine tasting!! But JUSTIN is definitely worth a stop.

**All photos from the JUSTIN website: http://www.justinwine.com/**

For a look at a couple of JUSTIN wines check out these videos from Gary Vaynerchuk at Wine Library TV.

Review of JUSTIN Isosceles: http://tv.winelibrary.com/2008/04/18/hanging-out-with-justin-on-a-laid-back-friday-epsiode-447/

(Just to show how on top of it the Baldwins are, after this video aired on Wine Library TV Debbie and Justin wrote Gary an email thanking him for his honest comments, which Gary read on a later show.)

Review of JUSTIN Cabernet Sauvignon: http://tv.winelibrary.com/2007/10/12/california-cabernet-sauvignon-tasting-episode-332/

Halter Ranch

Holy moly! Just driving up to Halter Ranch predisposes you to love whatever you're going to drink inside. This winery has such a great combination of setting and location...they could be pouring me Welch's and I wouldn't care as long as it was as sunny and idyllic as most Paso days! Lucky for us they're not pouring Welch's--in fact Halter Ranch has fallen in line with much of what makes a great wine from this area: estate red wine blends from the west side of Paso.

Halter Ranch is easy to spot because there's a giant beautiful Victorian house just off the road. Sadly, the tasting room isn't inside the restored house, it's just behind it in a smaller, new building. And apparently it's not a home-steading, pioneer family that lives in the old Victorian...it's owned by some rich Swiss guy that's rarely there! But I xenophobically choose to ignore that incongruous detail and focus on how gorgeous the setting is at Halter Ranch! I mean come on, not only is there an old Victorian house but there's a barn and a grain silo and rolling, oak-covered hillsides. Swiss guy or not I totally love this place!

The tasting room itself is small but not too small and there is a really nice outside patio area. Plus, they sell some little meat and cheese snacks, which saved me a trip back into town. But I think the main highlight for me was the French pourer working there! The wines were mostly estate Rhone blends so of course I was loving the descriptions of the French varietals in an authentic French accent! In fact, I think the accented introductions to the wines made me like them even more...if I'd tasted them for the first time in my house it just would not have been the same! But French-accent aside, these wines are definitely tasty and many of them are still at good value. There's no doubt that I'll be coming back to Halter Ranch and bringing friends. With nice wine, a convenient location (at the Adelaida Road/Vineyard Drive intersection), and an incredible setting I can't think of any reason to not recommend a trip out to Halter Ranch.

**All photos taken from the Halter Ranch website: www.halterranch.com** And I'd like to give the website two very enthusiastic thumbs up...everything I could have wanted was available to me, which actually makes this website useful (unlike many other winery websites!).

L'Aventure

I have to admit...I'm not the most thorough when it comes to preparation for my tasting room visits. I like to think of it as playing it like I see it--not forcing other peoples' opinions on myself before I experience something for myself. Of course all that is secret code for "I'm lazy" but in the case of L'Aventure the press on this place is hard to avoid. Stephan, the very French winemaker, is the media darling of the Paso Robles wine industry so I was very interested to see the place for myself and I have to say it was an interesting experience.

The religion at L’Aventure is undoubtedly “Stephan”…the religion of “Stephan” reigns supreme throughout all who work at this winery (which to the casual observer seems slightly creepy until you taste the wines!). The wines coming out of Stephan Asseo's facility are like ambrosia to both employees and patrons! And that level of dedication seems necessary when it comes to wines that are priced so high…Many of Stephan Asseo’s estate blends are priced over $65. To many related to the winery, “Stephan” has somehow (to those that are either local or part of his totally booked wine club) entered that world of those who can get away with only one name. Politicians like Fidel or Mao; the infamous like O.J. or Kobe, or the self-proclaimed single-named famed of the world such as Bono or Prince. Even within Paso Robles as a whole most of those related to the wine industry know “Stephan” as either an idea or a man.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Imagine visiting Paso for a casual weekend of wine tasting. You probably won’t stumble across L’Aventure because it’s at the end of a non-descript dirt road. The building is situated in a lull in the vines and only a very small portion of the building is designated to the tasting room. Now I have to admit, I’ve been twice and I’ve had two very different experiences. According to the L’Aventure website (www.aventurewine.com) the tasting room is void of “gimmicks” and exists as an educational tool for those that would like to learn more about the wines of Paso. In theory that’s great, but the first time I went I arrived with my companion just behind a bus, which made my personal wine education take a distant second to the selling of wine to those involved in the area tour. However, the second time I went it was a very intimate, personal situation. So it seems this tasting room really depends on when you're there. I mean, let’s be honest, you can’t go wrong with delicious wines, so you will have a worthwhile visit to L’Aventure…but occasionally you can hit this tasting room at a bad time and it could feel less worth your while.

The L'Aventure tasting room is surprisingly small, which adds to the problem of it being over-crowded at times. The bar surfaces where the wine is poured are pretty aesthetically neutral but the decor on the walls looks generally unorganized. There are framed articles covering much of the wall space and then some good visual data about the vineyard but all this appears to placed totally randomly throughout the small space. The pourers were quite knowledgeable and they had some excellent recommendations of other wineries worth stopping by. My general impression of the tasting room is that they can get away with it being totally plain because the wines are excellent and people will make the trip anyway.

**Each of these deliciously staged photos is available on the L'Aventure website (www.aventurewine.com) under the "Press" section. I had to restrain myself from including more...

Calcareous

I find myself here, a month after my initial 'Bobby Wino' post, finally making my first tasting room driven blog posting. I found myself this afternoon at Calcareous Vineyard because I closed my eyes and put my finger in the "middle" to Paso Robles wine country. Granted that's not exactly a scientific approach but you have to start somewhere.


First of all, the site for the Calcareous winery is incredibly beautiful. There are 360 degree views for miles and they provide some lovely umbrellaed tables outside. But something I don't understand is the building itself. It's situated on the top of this beautiful hill but the winery building makes no attempt at blending in with the surroundings let alone adding any aesthetic value to the site. The landscaping around the front of the winery is nice but the building is an eye sore. And the outside picnic area has great tables but the the backside of the winery gets a better view back toward Adelaida Road than the patio tables for guests. But having said all this about how disappointing the building is, the remaining view is still worthwhile. Plus, there are a couple of vineyard dogs that loll about the grounds and, other than their terrible breathe, they're a very nice addition to the experience!

The tasting room is a surprisingly small space with no windows other than those facing the industrial interior of the barrel room. The afternoon I visited the cellar workers were blasting the music from the movie Juno,which I found to be a delightful soundtrack for my tasting! The fellow that was pouring for me seemed very knowledgeable on where the grapes are grown and purchased versus the varietals that are grown on the property. Sadly, the very friendly pourer was a bit scattered and had a hard time keeping track of where the various tasting parties were on the list. But in general the attention he did spend with me was very nice and he included a couple wines that weren't on the tasting room list, which is always a good way to make tasters happy.

Overall I think Calcareous is a worthwhile stop. If you're trying to decide on where to go to enjoy your packed lunch this is the place because the views are unbeatable. The wine is generally lighter than many Paso wineries and I enjoyed the whites that were available, in particular the Roussanne and the Viognier. I think they could use a bit of work on their presentation...they're just not taking full advantage of the physical location they have. This is a spot that I'm curious to know what others think of it so send me an email with your thoughts.

*Photo is from the Calcareous website: www.calcareous.com*