What's with Paso Robles Cabernet?

Wines & Vines, August, 1993 by Richard Paul Hinkle

Given decent drainage, proper exposure and the basic skills of husbandry (it's nigh unto impossible to kill a grape vine), climate becomes the determining factor. A noontime look at Paso Robles in the summer would seem to preclude all but dessert wine varieties from contention. Ninety or a hundred degrees will get your attention, and quick. But wait a bit. Three hours, perhaps four.

And there it is. At first a whisper, but quickly a consistent current of cool air from western gaps in the Santa Lucias, up the draw of Highway 46 West, through the creeks. The Pacific Ocean is just over the hills, and the marine air cools afternoons and evenings as surely as taxes follow income. "The airflow from the Pacific follows Highway 41, Toro Creek and Highway 46 from Estero Bay and Morro Bay," explains Wild Horse's Ken Volk, whose Cabernets are opulent and juicy, with silky black cherry fruit and just a hint of bell pepper. "The marine air is there every afternoon of the growing season, and it makes all the difference."

"Yes, that wide swing between high and low temperatures is the quality factor for Cabernet here," agrees consulting enologist Tom Myer, who assists owner/winemaker Niels "Beaver" Udsen in making Castoro Cellars' supple blackberry and chocolate-laden Cabernets northeast of Paso. "We have a 40 to 50 |degrees~ shift almost daily during the growing season, with typical highs between 80 and 100 |degrees~ or more, and lows of 50 to 55 |degrees~. It's like a wind tunnel by five, and you can hardly get your car door open! And you can't plan evening outdoor events. There are not very many nice summer evenings."

If so, Paso winegrowers figure it's a fair tradeoff: supple, spice-laden Cabs for windy, cool nights. Now, if they can only figure a way to beat phylloxera.

Actually, phylloxera is a potential problem in Paso, but in a different fashion than you might expect. "We know how phylloxera got here," says Eberle somberly. "Ortman brought it from Napa Valley!" The room roars, and friendly epithets are bantered about before the discussion returns to more serious dimensions. You see, most Paso plantings are own-rooted, so the phylloxera they'll battle is not biotype B, but the original, slow-spreading variety.

Which they're not too terribly worried about. "We've just put in some new vineyard this spring, and we're staying with own-rooted plantings," boasts Eberle, who's made sturdy Paso Cabs with consistent blackberry and violet notes for nearly two decades. "Dr. Alley and Dr. Olmo always said that Cabernet vines on their own roots make much better wines than vines grown on AXR. So we feel that that is just one more factor that makes Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignons--with clove spiciness and jammy, raspberry preserve fruit--distinctive . . . and friendly."

One does not argue with burly, former Penn State linemen.

(The author of five wine books, Hinkle has long written on viticulture for WINES & VINES, FARM PRESS, GRAPE GROWER and CALIFORNIA FARMER. He once managed the 56-vine Bad Hinklestein planting of Cabernets Sauvignon and franc.)