San Luis Obispo’s modern-day, commercial winemaking was born in 1968 in the Edna Valley, which lies on the southeast outskirts of the city. County farm advisor Jack Foote planted several premium wine-grape varieties, to determine if they would grow in the valley’s calcareous, sandy-clay-loam and volcanic-rock soils. Foote’s successful experiment became legendary and initiated the planting of the many vineyards that have earned Edna Valley a prominent place on the international winemaking scene.
In the 1970s, successful Southern California restaurateur Norman Gross established himself as a pioneer of the Edna Valley wine industry. On Orcutt Road, he founded Chamisal Vineyard, which is today the home of Domaine Alfred.
About the time Gross started Chamisal, the Jack Niven family planted nearby Paragon Vineyard. In 1980, Jack Niven (Paragon Vineyard Company) and winemaker Richard Graff (Chalone Wine Group) founded Edna Valley Vineyard. Several years later, Catharine Niven, Jack’s wife, began Baileyana Winery. Former aerospace engineer Andy MacGregor planted his MacGregor Vineyard on Orcutt Road near the Nivens’ vineyards, and across the valley, Price Canyon Vineyard. In 1984, Margaret and Meo Zuech founded Piedra Creek Winery at MacGregor Vineyard. The winery and vineyard became Wolff Vineyards in 1999.
Paso Robles-Area Vineyards and Wineries
In 1797, Father Fermin de Lasuen founded Mission San Miguel Archangel just north of what is today the city of Paso Robles. The San Miguel mission had two vineyards, one that extended east of the mission, and a larger field that lay to the northeast where Vineyard Canyon is today. Like the San Luis Obispo mission, San Miguel made wine for religious ceremonies.
About 12 miles south of the mission, one of the county’s first secular vineyards was established before the American Civil War, and today the same land is still producing grapes for wine.
In 1856, Frenchman Adolph Siot and his wife, Paulina, arrived in the Paso Robles area and purchased land west of Templeton, where they planted Zinfandel grapes. Around 1890, Siot built a small winery and produced wine for nearly 20 years, until 1908 when he sold his wine operation to Joe Rotta. In the 1920s, Joe sold the business to his brother, Clement, who later bonded the winery after Prohibition and made his label well known for its hearty Zinfandel. The winery was sold in the 1970s, but after numerous legal battles it returned to the Rotta family. In 1990, Michael Giubbini, Joe Rotta’s great-grandson, began replanting the vineyard largely to Zinfandel, the grapes Adolph and Paulina Siot had planted nearly 130 years before. In 2005, construction began to resurrect the old Rotta Winery building.
After the Siots’ early field of Zinfandel vines, in the 1870s another family-owned vineyard was established to the south, in Santa Margarita, on the grounds of a lodging facility and dance hall built by brothers Edwin and Reuben Bean. The Beans’ Eight Mile House provided overnight accommodations and refreshment for drovers and teamsters who traveled between San Luis Obispo and the Paso Robles area. The mild climate and the hotel’s pleasant location and comfortable quarters made the inn a popular health resort for visitors from the Tulare Valley. Today, Gil and Delores Babcock own the historic property just east of Highway 101 and make wine for family and friends from the 280 Mission grapevines that still grow there.
To be continued in the next blog post….