CHANGES COMING TO HISTORIC PROPERTY ©

The wines of  historic Hoffman Mountain Ranch (HMR) vineyards were the first commercial offering from the Paso Robles area. It was developed from a 1,200 acre walnut ranch purchased by well known Beverly Hills cardiologist Dr. Stanley Hoffman in 1965. Planted to 120 acres of Burgundian (and other) varietals and with Andre' Tchelistcheff as his consultant, wines were first offered in 1972. Hoffman's two sons had been mentored and formally trained and were responsible for the vineyards and production, which grew to 400,000 cases by 1982 - this would still be sizeable for local wineries. The vineyard portion of the HMR property grew to include 419 planted acres.

About the only other Paso Robles exposure to the mainstream market at that time was a Zinfandel made by Ridge but sourced from the Dusi ranch near Paso, beginning in 1967. Even three decades after the initial Hoffman release, there were only 65 wineries in the area. In the next ten years, that number neared five times as many!

In the early days of vineyard expansion, the planting concentrated on the east side of town, where rolling land was easier to plant in quantity and more easily adapted to mechanical harvesting techniques. But Hoffman had picked his hilly site in the west side hills because of the limestone found in the soil. He enjoyed wines from Burgundy and believed that to be a basis for good Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. His versions of those wines found favor with critics, and others began to plant in the hills with the idea of being estate wineries rather than grape growers. Even in 2002, about 60% of the grapes grown in the Paso Robles area were shipped to large production facilities, a trend which is still strong but infused with many smaller operations making small lots of award winning wines.

Unfortunately, HMR is not among them. In 1976 an actual winery (vs. a make-do facility initially used) was built on the ranch. But, Paso Robles was not really on the wine radar nor Pinot Noir the varietal getting market share in those Cabernet/Chardonnay, Napa-centric days. HMR was not able to compete with that market focus. With so few wineries on the Central Coast at that time, the logistics of distribution was also a likely hurdle to sales and the operation shut down in the 80’s. The original ranch was parceled out to various owners over time.

 The actual HMR vineyard fell into a sad state over about ten years of neglect.  In 1994 it was purchased by a neighboring property, Adelaida Cellars, which primarily produced cabernet. The HMR vineyard was rescued and an estate bottling of Pinot Noir now bears that designated (and trademarked) label. The nearby site of the old winery was not included in the vineyard purchase and was most recently operated as Twilight Cellars. That parcel bordered the Daou Vineyards which recently acquired 200 acres of land related to that site, along with the winery & tasting room. They plan to develop that land and plant it to primarily Cabernet Sauvignon for the Bordeaux style blends for which they are best known. Meanwhile, Adelaida is planning to develop 23 acres of their "Surf Song" block to enable expansion of their current offerings. It is good to see such a landmark name and pioneer vineyard owner continues to have a place in Paso.