Paso Robles winery visits, April 2016
I’ve posted a portion of a report on a mid-April visit with a couple of friends to three Paso Robles wineries just before Hospice du Rhône. A full report on all of the visits is on the Grape-Nutz.com website:
Paso Robles – April 2016
Adelaida Cellars
Paix Sur Terre
Giornata Wines
Hospice du Rhône in Paso Robles! It was wonderful to have that event back after a four-year hiatus. And just as we did in the old days, a few of us arrived in Paso Robles a day early so we could do some local wine touring on the Thursday just before HdR started. Eric Anderson, Al Osterheld, and I all drove separately to Paso on Wednesday and got into town by late afternoon. Al was running a bit later than Eric and I, so we figured a convenient place to meet would be at Barrelhead Brewery in the “Tin City” complex just south of town – we could start in on some brews while waiting for Al. The timing worked out fine, and Al arrived as Eric and I were still working on our first round of Barrelhead IPAs. We all met up again for dinner at Villa Creek Restaurant. We sat in the bar area and enjoyed a couple of wines we’d brought there – the highlight was a 2001 Jaboulet Hermitage “La Chapelle.” After a short stop for coffee on Thursday morning, we headed out on the road to our first of three winery appointments that day, a few miles through the beautiful hills of Westside Paso Robles to Adelaida Cellars.
Adelaida Cellars
Adelaida was one of the first wineries I visited in Paso Robles, nearly 25 years ago. At that time and on a couple of subsequent visits in the next few years, I thought the wines were fair to good, but not much more than that. By the mid-2000s, word was out that a new winemaker had taken over and the wines had taken a step up in quality, so Eric arranged for a group of us to visit there in the summer of 2005 with winemaker Terry Culton. The wines were indeed noticeably better than what I’d remembered from earlier visits. We returned for another group visit in spring 2006, but for whatever reason, I hadn’t been back since then. In the meantime, Terry had left and as of 2012, the new winemaker is Jeremy Weintraub. I’d met Jeremy during a visit to Gary Gibson’s Shadow Canyon Vineyard in 2008 – Jeremy was making the wines there at that time. So I thought this would be a great opportunity to reconnect with Jeremy as well as to revisit the wines of Adelaida.
After a couple of emails with Jeremy, we set a time for our appointment and he wrote that we should just ask for him at the tasting room when we arrived. I was the driver for the day, and Eric and Al joined me for the drive out of Paso Robles and along Adelaida Road to the winery, where we pulled into the parking area and started walking toward the facility. The only trouble was that Adelaida has added some brand-new buildings – including a new tasting room – and we weren’t quite sure where to go. But after a couple of minutes, I spotted Jeremy outside one of the new winery buildings and he welcomed us in.
Adelaida Cellars is owned by the Van Steenwyk family of Southern California, who bought property along Adelaida Road in the late 1970s. The winery was launched in 1981, with John Munch making the wines (he now has his own Le Cuvier label) and using fruit purchased from local growers. By the early 1990s, the Van Steenwyk family began planting an estate vineyard at Viking Ranch, which they had acquired earlier. In 1994, they purchased one of the most historic vineyard sites in the Paso Robles area, and indeed in the entire Central Coast. The old Hoffman Mountain Ranch vineyards were first planted by Dr. Stanley Hoffman in 1964, and include the oldest existing Pinot Noir plantings in either San Luis Obispo or Santa Barbara counties. Most of the original Pinot vines are still there, as are some rare Gamay Noir vines planted the same year. Now named the HMR Estate Vineyard, the old vines there still play a significant role in Adelaida’s wine program. More recent estate plantings include those at Anna’s, Michael’s, Bobcat Crossing, and Upper Viking vineyards.
Aerial view of vineyards courtesy of Adelaida Cellars
After John Munch departed Adelaida, Terry Culton made the wines beginning in 2003 before leaving the winery in 2012. Jeremy started doing consulting on the winery’s program of Bordeaux-variety wines during the spring of that year and took over as winemaker following harvest and crush. Originally from New York, Jeremy took a summer job at a Long Island winery when he was 20, conducting tours and tastings there. Although he did not immediately go into the wine business, the lure finally got to him some years later when he left his job to do vineyard work on Long Island. He soon left New York to study at Fresno State and UC Davis, where he earned a degree in viticulture and enology. He’s worked at some noted producers in Italy and New Zealand but he’s perhaps best-known for his tenure at Seavey Vineyard in Napa Valley, where he was the winemaker for several years following his work at Shadow Canyon. In addition to making the Adelaida wines, Jeremy has his own label called Site, with Rhône-variety wines made with fruit from some of Santa Barbara County’s top vineyards.
Inside the winery, Jeremy showed us a few of their large wood tanks as well as concrete tanks with built-in glycol tubing. He said that they ferment Cabernet in the wood tanks and that they’re having new concrete tanks made in the same truncated conical shape as the wood ones. But Jeremy knew that we’d all seen our share of wineries before and asked whether we wanted to take a ride with him to check out Adelaida’s vineyards. Of course! We all walked outside and hopped into an SUV that could handle the steep dirt tracks that led to some of the vineyard sites. And if you’ve ever met Jeremy, you know that he quickly grabbed his trademark cowboy hat before we headed out – I think our short time with him before we visited the vineyards is the only time I’ve ever seen him without that hat!
Al Osterheld with Jeremy Weintraub
Adelaida’s vineyards are extensive and far-flung. There are about 145 acres of grapevines on the property – though that pales in comparison to the 700 acres of walnut trees there. The Bobcat Crossing Vineyard is near the winery’s Adelaida Road location but the other sites are closer to Peachy Canyon Road to the south, and the Viking and Upper Viking vineyards are on the other side of that road. As we headed south, Jeremy drove us past the Daou Vineyards facility – he told us that they had purchased the site of the old HMR winery while Adelaida owns the old vineyards. Adelaida’s various vineyards range in elevation from around 1,400 to 2,000 feet. Jeremy told us that they began an organic farming program in 2013 and that about 1/3 of the vines are currently dry-farmed – they’re working to wean the rest from irrigation in the coming years. The winery employs a full-time 10-person vineyard crew.
It would be good here to provide a short summery of Adelaida’s vineyard sites. Bobcat Crossing is a smaller site with Muscat and several Portuguese varieties. HMR has the old-vine Pinot Noir and Gamay Noir, some more-recent Pinot plantings, and Chardonnay grafted with cuttings from HMR’s original 1973 planting of that variety. Anna’s, adjacent to HMR, is planted to white and red Rhône varieties. Nearby Michael’s is entirely dry-farmed Zinfandel, while an adjacent (and yet to be permanently named) site includes dry-farmed Zin, Alicante Bouschet, Carignane, and Grenache. Viking and Upper Viking are predominantly Bordeaux varieties plus a little Syrah. All of the vineyards feature different elevations, exposures, and slopes, and the different grape varieties are suited to the various sites. The Zin vines are all head-trained, as are all the vines at the site that includes the Alicante Bouschet, Carignane, and Grenache. Jeremy said that they’ll be head-training some Cabernet vines as well.
We drove past the Rhône varieties at Anna’s Vineyard as we headed down the hill toward the old HMR Pinot vines. At the lowest and coolest portion of Adelaida’s vineyard sites, the original own-rooted 1964 vines – the clone is not known – are planted on the calcareous soil common to Adelaida’s vineyards. Crop yield on these old Pinot vines is around one ton per acre. The small adjacent block of Gamay Noir is a rarity, with the oldest Gamay vines on the Central Coast. The old style of wide spacing for the vine rows is very much in evidence at the HMR site.
We continued east from HMR to adjacent Michael’s Vineyard, where we stopped to look at the dry-farmed head-trained Zinfandel vines, many of them planted on a very steep hill. These vines were planted in 2002 with cuttings taken from two very old Zin vineyards in the area. From the base of the hill at Michael’s, we looked out toward the hills to the north at Adelaida’s other head-trained vineyard site. Getting back in the SUV, we crossed Peachy Canyon Road and headed up to Viking and Upper Viking vineyards. As we climbed higher, we had a good view of the unmistakable terraces of Glenrose Vineyard just to the east. Stopping briefly near the top of Upper Viking, we could see that the chalky soil was significantly rockier than at the lower vineyard sites.
Our tour of the Adelaida estate vineyards was fantastic, but with limited time until our next appointment, we finally had to head back to the winery. Jeremy led us to the new tasting room to try some current releases. The new space is large, light, and airy, a definite step up from their old tasting room. We started out with the 2014 “Anna’s White” Rhône-style blend. Jeremy told us that the blends that had previously been called “Version White” and “Version Red” are now labeled “Anna’s White” and “Anna’s Red” to call attention to the vineyard site as well as to downplay the notion that the wines are merely versions of something else. We next tasted the 2015 Rosé, made mainly with Rhône grape varieties and from fruit picked early specifically for this refreshing wine.
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Jeremy followed the Rosé with Adelaida’s 2014 Pinot Noir from the old vines of their HMR Vineyard. He said that he’s generally picked the Pinot fruit at 23-24 brix and that he uses a small percentage of whole clusters in the fermentation – about 10% in the 2014 – with the rest being whole berry. The wine is aged in about 30% new French oak, and Jeremy talked with us about his choice of coopers, as he avoids those that impart a more aggressive oak character to the wine. We also recalled that Adelaida wines had been made mostly in American oak in the 1980s and 1990s but this has not been the case for many years. Coming from a region not known for Pinot Noir or other cooler-climate varieties, this HMR Pinot was a fine effort – reminiscent in a way of some Santa Barbara bottlings – it was the best Pinot I’ve tried from the Paso Robles area.
Next up was 2013 Syrah from Anna’s Vineyard, aged in about 40% new French oak, both puncheons and barriques. The 2013 “Viking” Bordeaux blend came from Upper Viking Vineyard, and the wine underwent a 30-day extended maceration to help soften the tannins. We finished our tasting of current releases with the 2013 Estate Zinfandel. This bottling is 100% varietal, though Jeremy told us that the Zin has been blended with a small percentage of Petite Sirah in some vintages. This was a bright and savory Zin, with ripe fruit that was fresh and not jammy, quite distinctive.
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Dry-farmed, head-trained Zinfandel vines at Adelaida’s Michael’s Vineyard
Although we didn’t have time to taste the Gamay Noir, the wine is worth a brief mention. Adelaida had used its Gamay fruit for some blending but had also made a nouveau-style wine, using carbonic maceration. Jeremy told us that he’s not a fan of nouveau-style wines but loves Cru-level Beaujolais (Morgon, Fleurie, Moulin-à-Vent, etc.), so starting in 2014 he’s making a more “serious” bottling of Gamay Noir inspired by that style.
Adelaida makes many other bottlings that we did not have time to taste on our visit with Jeremy, some of them quite limited-production. These include Picpoul, Viognier, Chardonnay, Grenache, Cinsaut, Mourvèdre, Touriga Nacional, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, plus a Nebbiolo sourced from Glenrose Vineyard. In addition, they produce Port-style and ice wine-style sweet wines and a value-priced blend called “Recess Red.”
One thing to note about the new vintages of Adelaida wines – they’ve recently revamped their label design. The old labels featured a pair of faces on them, while the new ones are a more “classic” label design – some just have simple and elegant text while others include a drawing showing the view from one of the winery’s hilltop vineyard sites. The new top-of-the-line Signature Series wines will feature the signature of winery owner Elizabeth Van Steenwyk. The label change is another step up for Adelaida in my opinion. True, the old “faces” labels did have a story behind them, but the look always struck me as a bit unsettling while the new ones are clean and tasteful.
Though we were starting to run a bit short of time, Jeremy wanted us to try a couple of tank samples of wines that would be bottled soon. We tasted a 2014 Mourvèdre that will be one of Adelaida’s Signature Series wines, and finished up with a 2014 Syrah – both obviously need some time to develop further but they were very promising, particularly the Mourvèdre. As we walked back out of the winery, we spotted Adelaida national sales manager Paul Sowerby, whom we’d met during our visits to the winery ten years earlier. Remarkably, he recognized us and he even remembered my name – I guess that sort of memory is handy in his position!
Tasting some of the current Adelaida wines with Jeremy was fun, and riding along with him on the tour of the estate vineyards was a real blast. I had to check the aerial view of the Adelaida estate vineyards on their website afterwards to get a true sense of where we’d been, and we were all over the place! It’s no wonder that they’re able to grow so many grape varieties when you see how different all of the vineyard sites are. Adelaida has had a long history on the Westside of Paso Robles – I felt the wines took a step up about 10 years ago and with Jeremy taking over the winemaking duties in recent years, I feel the latest wines are taking a further step up in quality. The wines in general struck me as being on the riper side – it is Paso, after all – but well-balanced, with the alcohol kept in check by the wines’ other aspects. None of the wines we tasted were in the big, rich, extracted style favored by many Paso vintners these days – there was a welcome sense of restraint along with the ripe fruit. My favorites included the Rosé, Pinot Noir, “Viking” blend, Zinfandel, plus the Mourvèdre tank sample.
Adelaida is one of those wineries that’s easy to overlook if you’re searching for the latest thing, but with their changes in both farming and winemaking (not to mention their impressive new tasting room), they’re almost like a brand-new winery. I was guilty of bypassing Adelaida for too many years, but after seeing and tasting what Jeremy has been doing there, I’ll be back again soon.
Tasting with Jeremy Weintraub
Current releases and tank samples
Adelaida 2014 “Anna’s White,” Anna’s Estate Vineyard, Adelaida District, Paso Robles. 54% Grenache Blanc, 22% Viognier, 13% Picpoul, 11% Roussanne. Light straw color, this had citrus and green apple aromas along with lightly herbal undertones. Medium-bodied with moderate acidity and a smooth, pleasant finish.
Adelaida 2015 Rosé, Adelaida District, Paso Robles. 51% Grenache, 24% Carignane, 14% Cinsaut, 5% Mourvèdre, 4% Counoise, 2% Syrah. Light salmon/pink color, featuring bright red fruits plus savory and earthy notes. Vibrant mouthfeel with a clean, refreshing finish, nice.
Adelaida 2014 Pinot Noir, HMR Estate Vineyard, Adelaida District, Paso Robles. Medium-light ruby color, with pretty floral scents, upfront black cherry and darker fruit, lots of spice, and touches of earth and toasty oak. Medium weight with a lively mouthfeel and finish – the best Pinot I’ve tried from this area.
Adelaida 2013 Syrah, Anna’s Estate Vineyard, Adelaida District, Paso Robles. Darker color, with aromas of ripe dark berry fruit, herbs, lots of baking spice, and touches of black pepper and vanilla/oak. Medium-full bodied with good acidity and a bright finish with moderate tannins.
Adelaida 2013 “Viking,” Viking Estate Vineyard, Adelaida District, Paso Robles. 56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Cabernet Franc, 16% Malbec, 8% Petit Verdot. Medium-dark purple, this displayed fruit-forward plum and currant along with dried herbs and a framework of sweet oak. More structured mouthfeel with a lively texture and medium-big tannins on the finish – tasty now and should be good for medium-term cellar aging.
Adelaida 2013 Zinfandel, Estate, Adelaida District, Paso Robles. Medium purple color, with fresh, savory and brambly ripe plum and boysenberry aromas with notes of pepper and earth. Medium weight with bright acidity, moderate tannins, and a lingering finish, nice.
Adelaida 2014 Mourvèdre, Anna’s Estate Vineyard, Adelaida District, Paso Robles (tank sample). Showing a bit reductive right out of the tank, this had floral, plum, and blueberry aromas along with earthy and herbal notes, finishing with moderate tannins – shows good potential.
Adelaida 2014 Syrah, Anna’s Estate Vineyard, Adelaida District, Paso Robles (tank sample). Darker color showing a darker fruit profile and lots of spice on the nose, with a big, structured mouthfeel and grippy youthful tannins – this will need more time to show its best.
Eric Anderson and Al Osterheld with Jeremy Weintraub among the HMR Vineyard Pinot Noir vines planted in 1964
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