My love for claret knows no bounds, and the shocking part about this particular bottle is: there is NO WAY you would ever guess it’s from Paso. But wait! I hear you say. Wine must be typicitous, and if you can’t place it in a region, it fails, right? WRONG. The thing here is: we have been so acclimated to the *Paso style*, this wine regains a standing only available on the world stage. Gone are your over-ripe, chubby, burnt visions of the area, and in its place is a wine SO Bordeaux, SO Alexander Valley, SO restrained Napa, it brings us back to what Paso is actually capable of to a refined palate–NOT just the tourist-juice peddled on every street corner. Rosy and round in the nose, a smoky aspect to glorious fruit chiming in with murky vegetal and dusty funk, mineral aching at every point: a steely *grape* envisioned down into muddy splendor. Decanted heavily after first taste. It needs it.
Ripping acidity and early tannin grant more visions of Left Bank blends, and while the vague, flowery nature of the middle screams Merlot, I think this is majority Cab. Abrasive wet slate casts petrichor distinctiveness on entry and core, the fruit a cherubic fat cherry drop begging for contemplative assimilation. Blackberry, blueberry, creme de cassis and licorice fill molds of cinnamon and nutmeg, everything funneled down into abrasive tannin far into the forever finish. One of the only true wineries left in Paso, visiting it is a step back in time before over-ripeness and overt-alcohol, before flatbrim and destination-wedding and event-center and *the story* and tour busses and Zin-Fest. These are real wines.
2018 DUNNING VINEYARDS ‘Meritage’ Cab/ME/CF 70/20/10 Willow Creek Dist. Paso Robles 14.5
Stephen McConnell 