By Emma Krasov. Photography by Yuri Krasov
California wine country lures national and international wine lovers any time of year, but especially in the fall, during harvest season. Paso Robles on the California Central Coast is surrounded by mountains and deserts, enjoys fertile soil of calcareous limestone, and is blessed with Mediterranean-type climate with year-round mild temperatures, perfect for growing cabernet sauvignon and more than 40 other grape varieties.
Grape growing started in Paso Robles (“Path of the Oaks”) back in 1797, on par with olives, almonds, avocados, and citrus fruit, and nowadays more than 200 wineries grace this beautiful land nestled midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Thanks to its inland whereabouts, Paso Robles is much warmer and cozier this time of year than the neighboring coastal communities, located closer to the frigid Pacific, and therefore prone to foggy and windy weather. To fully appreciate this AVA (American Viticultural Area) and to enjoy multiple wine tastings of rare small production wines that exist only here, this reporter suggests, you book a night or two at the exquisite Allegretto Vineyard Resort Paso Robles and enjoy sunny California at its very best.
Allegretto Vineyard Resort Paso Robles
An imposing stucco mansion with arched galleries and pseudo bell towers, framed by olive and pomegranate trees and lush vineyards, immediately resembles a posh Tuscan villa, and exudes a vibe of calm luxury. The five-star Allegretto Vineyard Resort by Ayres is a 20-acre estate with an array of features and services that make it an outstanding getaway, fit for a truly royal vacation.
In fact, you could easily spend your entire Paso Robles trip not even leaving the premises of Allegretto. You’ll sleep in a specious, well-furnished guest room decorated with textiles and artwork, with tall opening windows overlooking vineyards, terraced herb gardens, climbing rose bushes, and a serene swimming pool.
You’ll marvel at the long hallways and cozy lounges chock full of genuine museum quality art pieces, glass and marble statues, oil paintings, plush armchairs, leather loveseats, fireplaces, and crystal chandeliers.
Stepping outside, you’ll walk garden trails among the flower beds, sculptures, cast iron gazebos, antique wooden swings and benches.
You’ll be able to join timed events, put together by the resort, like Art Tours and Olive Oil Tastings, or explore on your own a thematic Star Garden Trail, conducive to a spiritual journey through the 12 stations of meditation, each featuring a particular Zodiac sign in art installations.
Willow Creek Tasting Room with a patio seating serves exclusive small-lot wines, produced by the resort, while Cello Ristorante & Bar crafts Northern Italian dishes from the locally grown and foraged ingredients. https://www.allegrettovineyardresort.com/.
Copia Vineyards and Winery
A boutique producer of rare varieties wines, Copia Estate is a labor of love for a husband-and-wife team, Anita and Varinder Sahi. By harvesting grapes from two distinct and highly desirable Paso Robles districts—Willow Creek and Adelaida, they managed to create a portfolio of wines at the same time complex and approachable due to their unique characteristics and enduring qualities.
Each vineyard block in Copia’s 26-acre estate is just about an acre, which makes the wine production rather small, and all the more precious to experience as a club member (among about a thousand others) or as a wine tasting guest if your travels take you to the area and you’re able to secure a reservation.
With its first full harvest as recent as 2018, the Sahis’ small family business grew remarkably fast, moving from the original 100 cases to 250 in one year, to 1200 in 2020 when it became clear to the entrepreneurial spouses that their “playing in the dirt” is no longer a hobby, but a business—to the currently produced two or three thousand cases.
Their main focus is on the quality of well-developed white and red blends—each treated almost like a family member, well taken care of throughout the entire winemaking process, led by Varinder Sahi, and brought to perfection before appearing in Copia’s beautifully designed tasting room for a Signature Wine Flight and Culinary Pairing put together by Anita Sahi, whose past culinary experiences include working alongside Michelin-star chefs in NYC restaurants.
This elegant wine tasting event starts with an aromatic 2023 White with robust minerality—a blend of roussanne, viognier, and picpoul blanc, “a white wine for a red wine drinker” according to Anita—paired with a bite of hamachi crudo in coconut, lemongrass, ginger and mint sauce.
Next comes 2021 The Story, which consists predominantly of grenache with a little mourvedre, and is especially favored by Anita, who also had a journalistic career in her background, and knows what a good story is all about. This fragrant wine, redolent of lavender, juniper, thyme and sage is accompanied by a tiny puff pastry shell filled with a morsel of duck confit, sweet potato dice, and pomegranate gastrique.
Likewise, 2021 The Cure (45% mourvedre, 28% grenache, 27% syrah) is served with a slice of coppa carpaccio rolled around arugula, sprinkled with parmesan, and dressed with berry vinegar, while 2021 The Source (95% syrah, 4% grenache, 1% viognier) is paired with a spoonful of Sahi Family Garam Masala Ratatouille made of eggplant and shiitake, and topped with chive.
In its culinary pairings the winery uses estate grown herbs and vegetables to complement their highly acclaimed small production wines. https://copiavineyards.com.
Broken Earth Winery
With a strong legacy of sustainable vineyards, first planted in 1973 on 2 500 acres, Broken Earth Winery has no shortage of estate grown varieties of “bold and balanced wines, intentionally crafted with minimal intervention to reflect the soil, fruit and character of Paso Robles.”
To showcase their qualities in a new and unexpected way, the winery offers an intriguing entertainment slash educational experience, as exclusive as it is widely attractive, called Black Glass Tasting.
This immersive sensory adventure offers a fresh way to explore wine, poured from the bottles, disguised inside brown bags, into opaque black glasses. This simple trick immediately robs the poured wine of its foremost characteristic—the color. Without it, the guests are asked to fill out a tasting notes form by concentrating on ranking other distinct features of wines—acidity, sweetness, and body—on a scale from 1 to 10, and based on the numbers to make an educated guess of the variety in question.
Identifying the wines inside four black glasses, based solely on their aromas and flavors without seeing what color they are, can be a fun challenge, but also a memorable moment of learning their subtle differences, especially that Broken Earth boasts an amazing roster of rare varieties—fiano, malbec, tempranillo, grenache, verdelho, albarino, tannat, vermentino, albillo, viognier, and so on.
Black Glass Tasting is usually conducted at the Broken Earth Tasting Lounge by a knowledgeable host, like Richard Provensen, Sommelier Level 2 with distinction, currently approaching Level 3 certification. He presents the guests with a selection of estate grown wines with various flavor profiles along with a box of smelling materials, and a printout of a colorful Wine Sensory Wheel to help them do their best in matching the olfactory descriptions of different organics to the invisible wines they’re tasting. The Wheel graphic defines the entire spectrum of flavors by categories and subcategories including the expressions of faults in wine, like volatile acidity (vinegar), cooked (toffee), and corked (wet dog, musty cardboard).
Justin Tooley, Vice President at Broken Earth Winery, has this to say about the novel experience, “At Broken Earth, we are passionate about showcasing the wide variety of wine we produce here in Paso Robles. The Black Glass Tasting Experience is designed to challenge and engage our guests, inviting them to sharpen their palates and explore their favorite Broken Earth wines in a fun, interactive setting.” https://brokenearthwinery.com.
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