Paso Robles Garagiste Festival 2014

The 4^th Annual Paso Robles Garagiste Festival has come and gone. Yet another sold out event that highlights and promotes the small production, or ‘garagiste’, winemakers. This was the first year the event was held at the Paso Robles Event Center, prior to this year it had been at the Beautiful Windfall Farms.

The benefits to having this event (or any event for that matter) at the event center is that it’s got plenty of parking, it’s in town versus out, it’s near hotels so attendees from out of town can walk to the event, and there is plenty of space. Granted, it may not have the spectacular beauty of Windfall Farms but all in all, I must say this was an improvement. I’d rather drive 5 minutes to an event than 20.

Annie and I went to the three seminars and trade/media tasting on Saturday. The first seminar was Stewart (co-founder of the Garagiste Festival) chatting with Matt Kettmann, wine reviewer from Wine Enthusiast. The title of this seminar was ‘Taste Like A Pro’.

The second seminar was Stewart chatting with Steve Lohr (CEO of J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines) in a discussion titled, ‘Paso Subdivided Into 11 New Viticulture Areas’. The last of the seminars was called ‘Making A Dream Come True: My Second Career As A Vineyard Owner & Winemaker’. This one featured Bob Tillman from Alta Colina, Carl Bowker from Caliza Winery, and Victor Abascal from Vines on the Marycrest.

We did bail halfway through the third seminar to go to the trade/media tasting but I enjoyed the seminars. I specifically liked the topics. The media tasting went well, however, I found myself not tasting many wines. It becomes so difficult to go through and REALLY taste when there are so many people you know there. You end up chatting and catching up with people you haven’t seen for a while.

I was impressed with the wineries that turned out to pour. Such a diverse group of people and wines, hard not to find wines you will like. There were non-wine vendors there as well; like Vivant Fine Cheese, Farmstead Ed, Heaven Squared Brownie Company, Limerock Orchards, Therabee Honey, and more. Vivant is always amazing…more cheese please! We tried Heavenly Squared Brownie Company for the first time and I was blown away by the Pumpkin Spice Souffle. Annie tried their Ghost Chile brownie and the Apricot Cardamom Honey. We also walked away with a couple of their bacon brownies…not sure I need to say anything else about that.

Overall, the event is one I dig because there are so many wines and wineries that we normally do not have access to. As usual, the Garagiste crew (Doug, Stew, Michelle, Lisa, Dave, Melanie, and all the volunteers) really nailed it. I think they’ve done a great job branding and growing this event into something that is a standalone, unique, must attend event. You know…if you’re into great wine and some of the coolest stories on the planet.