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.
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