CALIFORNIA’S ‘OTHER’ GREAT WINE REGION
Lynne Robson explains why you should head for the hills of Paso Robles.
When you tell people you are going to California to pick grapes and that you will be working for free they generally believe you are a) kidding, or b) crazy.
To be honest, there were moments when crazy sounded about right; when the temperature edged above 29.5 C and we were lugging 13.5 kilograms of grapes up a hill to the collector bin; when all you wanted was a gulp of water but your bottle was at the end of the last, long row of vines you’d picked.
I could go on — about the divebombing wasps, the masses of earwigs and the need to be alert for rattlesnakes — but then you might not want to go to Paso Robles.
You should. You definitely should go to Paso, because my fleeting moments of discomfort were far outweighed by the discovery of a place with glorious scenery, genuinely friendly people, and overflowing with good wine.
A lot of Canadians have never heard of Paso Robles, despite the fact we drink a lot of wine from there (Liberty School and J. Lohr, to name just two).
So, a little geography: Paso Robles is mid-distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles, about 32 kilometres from the Pacific Ocean. The name Paso Robles means Pass of the Oaks — and large swaths of ancient oaks still line the back roads.
Until about 20 years ago, Paso was a sleepy place, surviving mainly on walnut groves and beef grazing.
There were a few vineyards but only the most imaginative could have predicted how quickly wine would transform Paso Robles. Wine production is now the economic driver of the region. Paso has become California’s third-largest producer of wine, and regularly wins prestigious awards and high scores for fine wine.
Still, when many people think “wine and California,” they think Napa and Sonoma. Paso Robles is seen by some as the “other,” less noteworthy wine region.
Two friends and I decided to go see for ourselves.
One of our travelling trio had the idea of making it a working vacation. Debbie Gordon is a sommelier. She convinced the winemaker and the owner of Rangeland vineyard to let us get a hands-on view of their wine harvest.
Rangeland is a good example of the changes that have come to Paso.
When Laird Foshay bought the land 17 years ago, it was a beef and sheep ranch. Foshay sank his fortune (earned during the early days of startups in Silicon Valley) into converting much of the ranchland to growing grapes.
“Grapes are the highest value agricultural crop you can grow just about anywhere but especially in hill country and woodlands like this,” says the entrepreneur. His vineyard produces about 2,000 cases a year, and distribution of Rangeland wine is limited to the region.
That is a common story in Paso, where there are 200 wineries and a whopping 95 per cent of them are family owned. Most produce under 5,000 cases a year.
The advantage of the small operation is the “care and attention we are able to give our crop,” says Foshay.
“Small producers have the luxury of knowing all of their vines. We can pick half a row at peak of ripeness, and wait for the rest.”
As a small producer though, Rangeland has limited full-time staff, which explains in part how three Canadian women of a certain age wound up picking grapes, sorting grapes and tying up grape vines. We were occasionally useful, but seldom efficient. We provided great entertainment to the casual workers (mostly Mexican pickers). And some days we were just downright laughable.
Especially the day of the sorting and de-stemming machine nightmare.
Picture four tons of grapes pouring onto a conveyor belt. Our job was to find and dispose of dehydrated or unripe grapes. Sounds easy enough, right? And it was … until the mass of grapes headed at us was so big we were no longer examining grapes but desperately grabbing them. Now picture the I Love Lucy episode … when Lucy and Ethel worked in a candy factory, packing bonbons.