I feel like it’s been a while since we have had a blog post about wine tasting…need to brush the dust off. Annie and I recently made plans to go to downtown Paso Robles for dinner, Il Cortile to be exact, but we were a bit early so we decided to take a walk. That walk did NOT last long due to the fact that we stumbled across Symbiosis Wines which is located just a couple of doors away from Il Cortile.
I’m quite happy we were too early for dinner and ended up stumbling upon this joint. We enjoyed our visit with the owner, Glenna Thompson.
A bit about Glenna from her website:
“Symbiosis Wines is as small and green as possible — preferring practices like gravity racking instead of pumping, pallet jacking versus forklifting, recycled paper labels, no ultraheavy glass, minimal trucking, etc. All grapes are sourced from Paso Robles vineyards using sustainable practices, and made locally, by hand, by one person — Glenna Thompson.
Glenna worked as an upholsterer and trained as a ballet dancer while beginning a career as a Biologist. She then went from exhibit design and development in Science museums to aquaculture to environmental microbiology before starting a Ph.D. in marine microbiology. 8 years later, a wine tasting trip lured her to Paso Robles, where she spent several years running labs for various wineries. Recognizing that winemaking was a symbiotic mix of art and science, she launched Symbiosis in 2007.”
We tasted:
2016 Torrontes
2013 Rose (49% Tempranillo 51% Grenache)
2009 Petite Sirah
2010 Syrah
2011 Tempranillo
2011 Grenache
Sorry, I neglected to get pricing on the wines so you’ll have to go check this spot out on your own. That said, we really did enjoy the wines. The Torrontes was beautiful and happens to be a favorite variety of Annie’s. The Ros was terrific and we found it interesting that it was 5 years old. Most Roses you see around here are far younger. The line-up of reds was legit and again, we were intrigued by the age of those wines.
We left there with some Torrontes, Rose, Syrah, and Grenache. You will likely catch us in there grabbing more of that Torrontes. Bottom line, we found Glenna to be really cool, down to earth, and easy to chat with. The wines, in my humble opinion, speak for themselves. This is a spot I would encourage you to try out. Then maybe grab dinner at Il Cortile or Habaneros which is across the street. Speaking of food, think I just made myself hungry. Cheers!
Leave a Reply