There’s been a lot of talk about the potential subdividing of the Paso Robles AVA into 11 (I think) different appellations. Yesterday I read a blog post by Fred Swan, and he made a lot of sense in his argument for breaking Paso down in to 11 appellations.
I’ve written about it on here before and talked about how I don’t like the idea…and to be honest, I still kind of don’t. Although I agree with Fred’s position and the logic behind it, I guess I’m coming at it from an illogical place. I simply don’t like the idea because I hear so much talk about how in Paso Robles, the “west side is the best side”.
Now, whether the fruit grown on the west side is better than the east side is going to be up to your own opinion but my problem is that I don’t think one side could thrive without the other side. The other point is that there are a bunch of wineries on the west side that buy east side fruit and a bunch of east side wineries that buy Westside fruit (or have their own vineyards on the other side).
The “breaking apart” of this region just seems pointless to me in the sense of “togetherness” in this community. For the wine enthusiasts I do think the 11 appellations could be quite helpful but I’m not a wine enthusiast, I just like to drink.
I’m super open minded to all this and as I stated, my opinion is based more on the koombaya feelings rather than wine logic. So what are your thoughts? Is it good for Paso or no?
if it ain’t broke don’t fix it!
Howdy Jo…I agree, but those in favor of the change must think it’s broke. I guess we shall see.
If Paso is striving to become “Napa Snooty” then pursue the breaking down of the current AVA into “mini-AVA’s” and bring it on! The debate of west-side vs. east-side will never go away and both area’s growers continue to learn what grows best in each of the different terroir’s which continues to improves the quality of “Paso Wine”! Most quality bottles of wine from Paso already list the vineyard from where they came and the consumers have learned what best suits their tastes from that. Is there really a need to further break it down than that?
Steve, my personal opinion is no. I think it will just add to the “east vs. west” chatter that already goes on. Let’s just be a growing wine region…together. 🙂
I really hate the idea of the “Balkanization” of Paso Robles. There is no reason to break up Paso into more AVA’s. It will only confuse the consumer and dilute the efforts that so many have worked for 40 years to get Paso on the world wine map. If some one can show me proof that they can tell the difference between the differnet AVA’s blind I will throw in the towel, and switch sides, but I’ve been trying for 40 years and not been able to and have fooled way too many that thought they could. It’s the grower and the winery that make the difference.
Gary…great points, I agree. The main thing I agree with that you brought up was the confusion factor. I really can’t see it helping.