Community Tasting Note

• Cabfrancophile wrote: 86 points

  July 12, 2009 - An oak monster's wet dream. Can't really tell this is Cab Franc other than some tobacco, but it is decent. Lots of oak flavor, of course. Medium body, lots of oak tannin on the finish. At $6, maybe I'll pick up a few bottles to see where they go in a year or two. Could be a decent QPR if the oak integrates somewhat as '07 is reputedly a good vintage for Paso Robles.
  
  Edit: Upped score after tasting on day 2. Not especially aromatic with a bit of black currant showing, but the creamy oak gives a nice effect as a sipper. There's some definite structure and good, balanced fruit there that smooth out and express themselves over time. This might turn out to be a crazy good $6 buy.

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4 Comments

• tward commented:

  5/27/20, 8:29 AM - I know this is a very old note, but "'07 is reputedly a good vintage for Paso Robles" caught my eye. I've been buying Paso wines for many years, particularly Tablas Creek and a handful of others, including finally buying more Giornata. Anyway... I've never been able to find any good information or chatter discussing Paso vintages. At best the "professional" sources might have a "Central Coast" designation. I find more about SBC. If you've got any thoughts on sources, I'd love to hear about them. Thanks!

• Cabfrancophile commented:

  5/30/20, 8:25 AM - I had just gone on a trip to Paso earlier in 2009, probably I was extrapolating from some of those tastings or perhaps comments from a winemaker or tasting room staff. 2007 was a good 'central coast' vintage, as I recall. It's not ideal to generalize vintages over wide areas, but if it's a wet year or a hot year, both Paso and SBC are subjected to the same climate patterns. I'd only expect major differences when there are serious frosts or the wet/dry line in a rainy season ends up on the SB-SLO county line.

• tward commented:

  5/30/20, 9:18 AM - Thanks for your reply. I'm always on the lookout for more SBC and Central Coast insights. FYI, just this morning I read the following post on Tablas Creek's blog regarding their 2019 vintage. In that post, Jason Haas states his opinion that 2007 and 2017 were great vintages and that 2019 will join them. Now, that very well could be specific not just to Paso, but to the Willow Creek district, as Paso is really pretty extensive (and the "dividing line" isn't really the 101), or even Tablas Creek, specifically.
  
  Also, he seems to be basing the opinion on the "across the board" success of the vintages. Given the wide array of varietals grown in the region, it very well might be impossible to ever really generalize (unless there were particularly, universally bad conditions like rain and humidity during harvest). Generalizations are much easier in the Old World, where the varietal selection is often much narrower in each region.
  
  https://tablascreek.typepad.com/tablas/2020/05/does-a-great-vintage-like-2019-make-blending-easier-or-harder.html

• Cabfrancophile commented:

  5/30/20, 2:00 PM - That makes good sense in terms of specific varieties faring better in certain vintages, especially in younger vineyards where the best varieties are not fully identified. Certainly it's hard to imagine a great vintage for hearty reds being equally as good for fresh whites. Though I think this is true to some extent in Old World regions as well, where a great Red Bordeaux vintage and a great Sauternes vintage don't always overlap.
  
  I do think the one thing California has going for it is the range of microclimates over small geographic areas, e.g. Santa Rita Hills vs Happy Canyon or the western edge of the Templeton Gap vs East Side Paso. In that context, a good vintage allows for even ripening, so each variety can be picked to the winemaker's taste without heat or rain forcing decisions. Still, you're right, some varieties prefer more or less peak heat or sun, and will under or over perform the mean in a given vintage.

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