California's other wine country - Central Coast

Sunset, Sept, 1996 by David Lansing

Central Coast vintners from Paso Robles to Santa Barbara are producing wines that Napa Valley vintners covet

The silver horse vineyards tasting room sits in a converted pole barn. Outside, lazing in the sun, Tigger and R.D. (short for Ranch Dog) wait for the infrequent visitor to the 77-acre ranch tucked away in the rolling hills north of Paso Robles.

When R.D., a border collie-Australian shepherd mix, hears the distant hum of a car driving slowly up Pleasant Road, his ears snap to attention. If the car turns off the narrow, twisting country lane and onto the winery's gravel road, R.D. announces the arrival with a couple of short piercing yips.

The dog's barks alert Silver Horse owners Rich and Kristen Simons that they've got company. The Simonses are relative newcomers to the Central Coast wine scene, having bought their ranch in 1989 and produced their first wines in 1992. They fit right in. Pouring a barrel-fermented Chardonnay for a visitor, Rich notes that the wine is "unpretentious, but has lots of character." He might just as easily be referring to the dozens of wineries that, like Silver Horse, are hidden in the brown hills and oak-shaded valleys between Paso Robles and Santa Barbara, the heart and soul of the Central Coast wine appellation's southern end.

Many of these wineries, including Silver Horse, produce fewer than 4,000 cases of wine a year, selling their accomplished vintages out of old barns, former living rooms, and - in at least one case - a trailer. Though the names of most Central Coast wineries are not exactly household words (few people have even heard of Norman, Qupe, and Talley), the wines they produce are as fine as any being made in California.

Especially of late. "The '94 vintage was good, and a number of Central Coast wineries have been very good for quite a while," says David Russell, wine buyer for Santa Barbara's Wine Cask. "These are very impressive and very successful wines," he says. "And I think the best is yet to come."

With success, of course, has come change. The old barns and ranch houses are steadily giving way to million-dollar showpieces, such as the copper-roofed tasting room at Fess Parker Winery or Eberle Winery's underground caves (complete with a private dining room for special events).

Other changes go beyond cosmetics. Take the case of winemaker Byron "Ken" Brown, who founded the Santa Maria Valley's Byron Vineyard & Winery in 1984 after five years of making award-winning wines for nearby Zaca Mesa. To grow and keep pace with the competition - and to avoid being marginalized as a mere "boutique" winery - Brown sold Byron in 1990 to the Robert Mondavi Winery, Brown, who has stayed on as general manager and winemaker of Byron Winery, believes that Mondavi's resources will allow Byron's line of Burgundy-style wines - Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris - to compete with not only the best wines from Napa and Sonoma, but also those from France. "With Mondavi's backing, I sleep a lot better at night," he says.

Robert Mondavi's interest in the Central Coast is not limited to Byron. Recently, the winery acquired the nearby Tepusquet and Sierra Madre vineyards, as well as a 360-acre farm near Santa Maria that will soon be planted with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes. All told, Robert Mondavi Winery owns about 1,700 acres of vineyards in Santa Maria Valley. And it has just built a state-of-the-art Byron winery, whose sleek, humidity- and temperature-controlled facilities seem as distant from the Simonses' simple pole-barn tasting room as Byron's exquisite Pinot Gris is from unfermented grape juice.

Nor is Mondavi the only big-name vintner moving into the neighborhood. Beringer Wine Estates owns the Paso Robles winery Meridian Vineyards, whose almost 3,000 acres of vines makes Beringer one of the area's largest owners. Beringer is also a partner with French champagne maker Maison Deutz in Arroyo Grande, producing San Luis Obispo County's only sparkling wines.

Another French winemaker, Chateau de Beaucastel, has popped up down the road from John and Andree Munch, who moved to Paso Robles from San Francisco in 1981 to found Adelaida Cellars. John Munch welcomes his new French-speaking neighbors, even as they eye the uncultivated hills around him. He plans to follow their lead and plant more of Adelaida's vineyards with Syrah and other Rhone varietals.

"The Central Coast is like Provence - not Nice or Napa," says Munch. "Everything is very down-to-earth. The appearances of what we do may be lowbrow, but the presentation is exquisite. The quality of our wine is very high. That's why the French have come here."

It would be simple, but inaccurate, to say that the Central Coast wine region is refreshingly un-Napa-like. Certainly there's a good dollop of "aw-shucks" in many of the region's vintners. Take Tobin James Shumrick of Tobin James Cellars. Like a lot of other winemakers in the area, Shumrick got his start working for Gary Eberle (who many consider the godfather of the region) at Eberle Winery. Shumrick's first crush came from a gondola of grapes that Eberle refused to take because he didn't have room for it. Shumrick talked Eberle into letting him take the grapes instead of spilling them. Thus were born Tobin James wines. Today, Shumrick mischievously slaps exotic nicknames, such as Huevos or Wild Child, onto the labels of his bold red wines.