GOING HERE ©

            The Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance holds the 34th Wine Fest Weekend, May 19-22. Details and Tickets and full information are available at pasowine.com. The weekend offers a variety of events within the overall structure. Saturday morning has a seminar on characteristics of  Paso Robles and sub-AVAs. Two winemaker dinners are available on Thursday night. There is a Reserve tasting Friday evening and the Grand Tasting in the park Saturday afternoon. Boxed lunches and food trucks are available and a picnic area provided. Wineries are offering various Festival related events and specials for ticket holding Festival Fans. One example of which is Friday night at Derby Wine Estates (.com) tasting room and patio. They will kick off this year's Wine Festival with an exclusive "Salt Lick BBQ" event! 

A Texas Brisket, Ribs and Salt Lick Sausage plate will be prepared for you, by the legendary Pit Master Scott Roberts, all the way from Driftwood Texas. The Derby Smokehouse will be preparing delicious side dishes to compliment this Authentic Texas BBQ!  Join the fun May 20th from 5:30-9:00pm. Pat and Matt of The Guitar Circus will be entertaining the crowd with their dueling guitar act. Tickets are $30 for general public, available on the web site above.

The Chardonnay Symposium (.com for details) will be held the weekend of May 12-14 in various locations in the beach towns near San Luis Obispo and surrounding wine growing sites. As the above mentioned CABs event, this event is also a SOMM Journal magazine involved event with a wide range of tastings, seminars and dining events. Many of the events involve sommeliers from around the country and versions of the varietal from many different Chardonnay centric areas.

June 13th is the date for the first American Albariño Summit. The event will take place at Brecon Estate (.com) in Paso Robles. This unique event features both an Albariño tasting and optional educational seminar. At least twenty Central Coast wineries will be pouring their current offerings at the tasting.  The seminar is from 5 to 6pm and the tasting will be 5:30 to 7:30.

The panel includes Albariño experts talking about the origin and history of the grape, viticulture and a sommelier to enlighten us on food pairings. Seminar tastings include a comparison of  Spanish, Portuguese and California versions of the wine. The main tasting will include live flamenco guitar and food pairings reminiscent of NW Spain. Tickets for both are $50 or tasting only at $35 and purchased via eventbrite.com.

BEEN THERE ©

            The things to do and places to go have come fast and furious in the past few weeks. So much so I haven't had time to catch you up on them.

Let's start with Wi-Vi, The Central Coast Wine Industry Conference & Tradeshow. This event now has five years of ever improving history and increased interest. Started , with a different title, by Becky (First Crush Winery) and Lowell (Precision Ag Consulting) Zelinski, they have handed off the event to Wine Business Magazine . The publisher has been part of Wi-Vi since the early days but now has added it to a series of trade oriented gatherings they offer. However, Becky hosted the direct to consumer seminar sessions, focusing on tasting room and wine club marketing.  The enology and viticulture classes were run by Lowell and offered continuing education credits for those attending.

Attendance has grown to well over 1,000 and trade show booths were getting lots of action as they were easy to visit on either side of the lunch buffet. The timing worked well for those drawn to some focused tastings in the same space. Also a varietal focus seminar & tasting of Cabernet Franc was the latest in the annual session led by Lance Cutler. Locally, The Farm Winery, Daou Vineyards and Calcareous Vineyard presented well received samples. Some party time was also on the agenda and provided plenty of face to face networking.

This has turned into a major event and draws industry people from all the California wine regions. I'm looking forward to another successful event next year.

Next up was the CABs of Distinction tasting and trade event run by SOMM Journal  magazine and the Paso area marketing group that promotes area Cabernet Sauvignon, the Cab Collective.  The second version of the program was a two day exposure for media and sommeliers to the quality of local versions of the varietal and Bordeaux style blends. It included a double blind tasting of Paso wines compared to high end Bordeaux and other well know California growing areas.

The Paso Robles chapter of Rhone Rangers holds monthly tastings of single varietals that are fun social occasions but also include seminars from time to time. The April get together, held at the new Alta Colina location, concentrated on Mourvedre. There is not a lot of tonnage available so varietal bottlings are not common. Most of the juice goes into GSM blends with Grenache and Syrah. The four wines tasted were all grown within a few miles of each other. The consensus of the winemakers is that there is this Westside sweet spot for this difficult to grow and very late ripening grape. Often harvested as late as November.