Paso Robles Rhône Reds, March 11, 2023

For the first time since the start of the pandemic, the Cellar Society gathered in a restaurant for our March tasting. We had a big private room set aside for us and had a choice of 3 entrees as well as a salad and dessert and all 26 of the attendees seemed to be pleased with the quality of their meals. Even better, the cost was only $45/person.

As for the tasting, it was comprised of Paso Robles Rhône red blends, usually shortened to GSM, for Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre which are the main components of these types of wines. These 3 varietals along with a bottle of Counoise (occasionally used in GSM blends) made up the pretaste to prepare the palate for this tasting.

For the main taste, Bob & Sandy visited 8 different wineries in the region around their vacation home and picked out a variety to choose from. Once again, there were a range of opinions, with most of the wines being someone’s #1 and someone else’s #8. However, there was a fairly strong consensus that the #1 wine was the 2017 Tobin James GSM ($58) which received #1 and #2 votes from 10 of 17 who voted.

The main taste wines by group rank from left to right.

Individual voting

Click here for all handouts, including:

• Wine descriptions
• Tasting results
• Paso Robles AVAs and map

For more photos from this event, click here.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Paso Robles has become a destination for wine lovers, and most recently for lovers of Rhône wines because its climate is so similar to the Rhône Valley. Sandy and I recently purchased a vacation home in the area and have sampled wines from many different wineries and picked out the best blends of Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre (GSM) for you to taste and choose your favorite. For the pretaste wines, we’ll have single varietals of these 3 main wines with the addition of rarely found single varietal Counoise which is used in a few of the wines we’ve purchased.

Here’s a link with more detailed information on the use of these wines in the Paso Robles region, and in particular how Tablas Creek was one of the first to start making wines of this type in this area using direct cuttings from various spots around Château de Beaucastel. Incidentally, we will have a bottle of their 2018 Esprit de Tablas in our tasting.

https://winefolly.com/deep-dive/paso-robles-wine/

As for the meal, we’ve located a restaurant in Castro Valley that has a large back room that will be exclusively for our use. The restaurant’s name is Dino’s and is located at 20390 Lake Chabot Rd. You have your choice of 1 of these 3 Entrées:

1. New York Steak with Baked Potato

2. Veal Parmesan with Pasta

3. Broiled Salmon in Lemon Butter Sauce with Rice

All entrees include bread, tossed green salad, coffee or tea, and Tiramisu for dessert.

Estimated cost of tasting is $40 (based on 20 tasters) and $45 for dinner.