Nice, glad you enjoyed Paso! I actually work for a Paso winery down here in LA, The Blending Lab, where I teach wine blending classes for them at their LA tasting room. They have an incredible Grenache Gris Orange and a skin contact Grenache Blanc that stayed very white/yellow, not a trace of orange-ness thanks to the very white skins of that varietal. Both have remarkable acidity for Paso. In fact, Grenache Noir often grows with surprisingly high acidity in Paso as well! But yeah, that's not the norm, the norm is fruit-forward + high-alcohol, though flavor complexity can absolutely shine through with the right vineyard TLC and a little bit of luck with the vintage variation/year.
Hmm, I will need to google map the vineyard locations for both next time I'm in this weekend (can't recall the names off the top of my head.) But possibly! That said, the Grenaches all tend to have both high acidity and high sugar, so you get the mouthfeel of a high sugar harvest, but the acidity keeps it tasting fresh, with lower ultimate sweetness.
Ha ha, oh no, it's mostly relative newbies to wine! We have them blind taste single varieties and walk them through how to score them on acidity, body, and sweetness, and then begin blending trials to showcase how they change each other, with the goal of them each finding their own perfect blend. We do have some WSET'ers, wine writers/journalists, and wine influencers in the classes from time to time, but honestly, it's mostly casual drinkers/newbies. It's a great way to crash course someone on wine minutiae in an interactive way that isn't just book learnin' or winery hopping.
In 2008 we rented a previous version of this van for 40 days (and 40 nights). It however was on a Mercedes chassis (vs Ford on this one.) We named it Dieter due to the German ownership of Mercedes. When we bought Pieter, the name just seemed like a natural progression. 😝
Nice, glad you enjoyed Paso! I actually work for a Paso winery down here in LA, The Blending Lab, where I teach wine blending classes for them at their LA tasting room. They have an incredible Grenache Gris Orange and a skin contact Grenache Blanc that stayed very white/yellow, not a trace of orange-ness thanks to the very white skins of that varietal. Both have remarkable acidity for Paso. In fact, Grenache Noir often grows with surprisingly high acidity in Paso as well! But yeah, that's not the norm, the norm is fruit-forward + high-alcohol, though flavor complexity can absolutely shine through with the right vineyard TLC and a little bit of luck with the vintage variation/year.
What a super cool job! I will look you guys up! Are those Grenache blanc and gris from the western side of Paso?
Hmm, I will need to google map the vineyard locations for both next time I'm in this weekend (can't recall the names off the top of my head.) But possibly! That said, the Grenaches all tend to have both high acidity and high sugar, so you get the mouthfeel of a high sugar harvest, but the acidity keeps it tasting fresh, with lower ultimate sweetness.
Don't go to any trouble! I was just curious! 🧐 And who do your students tend to be? Industry people I assume?
Ha ha, oh no, it's mostly relative newbies to wine! We have them blind taste single varieties and walk them through how to score them on acidity, body, and sweetness, and then begin blending trials to showcase how they change each other, with the goal of them each finding their own perfect blend. We do have some WSET'ers, wine writers/journalists, and wine influencers in the classes from time to time, but honestly, it's mostly casual drinkers/newbies. It's a great way to crash course someone on wine minutiae in an interactive way that isn't just book learnin' or winery hopping.
Just checked: our Grenaches are from Briarwood Estate vineyard, so eastern part of Paso wine country, more inland!
Thanks for looking into it! Fascinating... I suspect that there are a lot of micro climates in Paso based on my time there.
I love that your camper van is named Pieter 😊
In 2008 we rented a previous version of this van for 40 days (and 40 nights). It however was on a Mercedes chassis (vs Ford on this one.) We named it Dieter due to the German ownership of Mercedes. When we bought Pieter, the name just seemed like a natural progression. 😝
Absolutely love everything about this story! So fun
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Bonny Doon! A classic brand name. Love Pieter, we also named our caravan when we had her in NZ.
I love that she was a she! What was her name?