Paso Robles Wine Festival by Kelley Mangan and Lindsay Woods

A weekend full of winery activities and celebration of delicious California wine! With over 200 wineries in Paso Robles people from Southern, Central and Northern California come to enjoy the festivities. During this weekend attendees enjoy special library and barrel tasting, winemaker dinners, artisan food and music hosted by the Paso Robles Wineries. The main event of the weekend is the annual Wine Festival event held on the downtown city park. Each year 60 wineries and fine dining restaurants join in the local city park to celebrate a 30 year event.

The Paso Robles Wine Festival weekend is a time for wineries to share their story with the world! Each winery has their own unique story and style of wine. Paso Robles wineries do not compete with each other; instead they recommend and share each other’s stories and wine. The most special part of festival weekends is how the local community all comes together. Local wineries, restaurants and vendors come together to show how well they all blend together. Beside wineries companies such as Carriage Vineyards, Leo Leo Gelato, Pasolivo Olive Oil, Vivant Cheeses, Vino Therapy and Two Little Birds Bakery all help support this local festival.

Lindsay Wood’s Wine Festival Experience…….

         This was my fourth Paso Wine Fest and by far the best one yet.  I am lucky enough to be a member of such an awesome wine “family”, because it isn’t just a club, it truly is a family.  A bit of history – I met Ted and Lisa Plemons at a Wine Auction in Atlanta and before that night had never even heard of Cass.  I immediately fell in LOVE with Cass 2006 Mouvedre and when Lisa suggested I come out to Paso to help with wine fest, I thought it sounded like the perfect way to spend a weekend.  I got to meet the Cass staff and other wine clubs members and I walked away from that weekend thinking it was one of the coolest wine trips I had taken ( and believe me I have taken a bunch).  So every year, Paso Wine Fest is a fixture on our calendar and my fiancée, Rocky, might love it even more than me – if that is even possible.

So what made this year so amazing?  First off, the number of people who came out to the winery Saturday was huge.  A beautiful, warm Paso day and so many people enjoying themselves at Ted’s Taco Bar under the huge oak out front.  The wine was flowing, the tunes were jamming and people were really just having a great time.  It’s hard not to be happy in that environment.  The Rockin One Blanc was the perfect complement to the warm sunshine.

Later that evening as the sun set, close to 100 wine club members gathered for Cass’ first Wine Fest Farm to Table dinner in the vines. Long tables were set up among the vines and Chef Jacob had prepared a menu that showcased items from Cass’ own garden or local farms. Guest enjoyed a glass of vino while mingling under the big oak sampling oysters and filet Carpaccio.  We moved to sit down and the first course was a beautiful mixed green salad from Cass garden (that coincidentally I witnessed Jacob harvesting that very lettuce just an hour or so before dinner – talk about fresh!) paired with the 2011 Rockin One Blanc. Next was the green garlic soup paired with the 2011 Oasis Rose.  I don’t know if you have ever had green garlic soup, I had not, but it was the most amazing soup and probably one of best courses of the night.

By this time the sun had set and the string lights set up above the tables gave off a very intimate and romantic feel.  These pictures hardly do it justice. The main course was served family style and consisted of beautiful lamb chops, Cass Rousanne marinated, wood fired chicken, fingerling potatoes and a variety of mixed vegetables.  It was easily to tell the ingredients of the whole meal were local and fresh. I wish I could describe it in words, but I simply can’t.  It was just like every bite exploded in your mouth.  Personally, I don’t care for lamb normally, but I ate every bite of this course – the lamb was perfectly seasoned and cooked and was not gamey at all.  The Rocking One Red highlighted this course perfectly.

For dessert we moved back under the big oak and the staff had set up fire pits.  A buffet of fresh fruits, marshmallows, shortbread cookies and wonderful chocolate sauce for dipping was laid out for all to enjoy.  Steve Cass brought out Cass Port as a complement to dessert.  It was the perfect way to end an evening. The dinner itself was something you would expect to find in a five star restaurant and pay as such, but rather I find myself in a vineyard with new friends with a meal that far exceeded the cost.  What was even better was opening my email the next morning to find new messages from other wine club members from all over who had already gotten in touch.  Pretty cool when you can go to dinner, leave amazed by the meal and pocket a few new friends.  And the coolest part is – it is ALWAYS like this at Cass.  They always treat you like family and you always feel at home there.

    

So thank you Steve, Ted and the Cass Crew –only 363 days till next year!

At Cass we have been so thankful for all the volunteers we get during this festival. Friends and family members that have a passion for our wine volunteer their time help us pour and talk about Cass Wine. Wine Festival weekend is about everyone come together to celebrate Paso Roble’s finest!

Ow ya goin' mayte? by Bryan Cass

I spent a year and a half living in Australia going to grad school, and got to do a lot of winetasting while I was there!  The first six months I was right next to the wine region of the McLaren Vale.

The McLaren Vale area produces a multitude of delicious wines and has a great wine festival every year called the "Sea and Vines" wine fest as it is only a few miles from the Southern Ocean.  This wine festival is similar to any festival weekend you find here in the states but you replace the tri-tip with snags (sausages), the Syrah with Shiraz, the deer with kangaroos, and the oak trees with eucalypts!  One of the wineries we visited whose wine is widely available in the United States at a reasonable price is D'arenburg.  They make some great wines and would recommend picking up a bottle the next time you are in the Australia section of the wine shop.  Their winemaker Chester Osborn is quite a character and a bit of a winemaker celebrity down there.

Can you spot the Kanga?

The Barossa Valley is a more arid wine region in South Australia that is known for big reds, especially Shiraz.  Our winemaker at Cass, spent a vintage making wine at Grant Burge in the Barossa while I was there.

This is Coriole Winery in the McLaren Vale where you get to pour your own tatstes!

The Clare Valley

Getting to the Barossa is a two hour drive north of Adelaide, South Australia's capital city.  If you venture another hour further north you get to the Clare Valley, which is slightly cooler and known for producing world class Riesling.  They even have a bike trail connecting tasting rooms called the "Riesling Trail".  I never had the chance to, but it would be a great way to spend a day winetasting.

Yet another large wine region a stone's throw from Adelaide, is the Adelaide Hills.  This area is quite cool for Australian standards and prodcues cool-climate wines like Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc.  Aside from these regions there are quite a few others including the Coonawarra, Padthaway, Mt. Benson, amongst others.  Go visit Australia if you ever get a chance and instead of going to the Great Barrier Reef or Sydney, go to Adelaide and do some winetasting, you will not regret it!

There are some very contemporary tasting rooms....

Some that are a bit more rustic...

Double decker bus tasting anyone?

Australia has a rich winemaking history, Penfold's Winery in the Barossa  Valley

Don't forget to throw away your "pip"

The Joy of Farming Wine Grapes by Cass Winemaker and Vineyard Manager Lood Kotze

Once again another cycle of grape growing has begun in the vineyard. We are currently in early bud break, a time I truly enjoy as it is probably one of the most beautiful periods in the vineyard. It has been a very dry winter, which is never a good thing in agriculture where you depend on good water for a successful crop, however the late rain has been a wonderful gift, and I believe, even with this year’s rain well below average, the timing of the March / April rains will be very effective, as it is right there, when and where it is needed, in the root zone when growing starts.

A very dangerous and potentially devastating occurrence during this time of the growing season is off course late winter frost, and the one growing challenge grape growers in this area will complain about most. There are few more discouraging sights to a grape grower then seeing the new shoots burnt and dried up from cold chill, often times from a single frost event.

I added a photo from April 9 this year. We had five days where it got around 28F, for five nights. It was a bit of a reminder of last years devastating frost, exactly a year ago, although not nearly as destructive. The positive side, was that very few of the varieties were in bud break since this year seems to be two to three weeks later then last year, at least for us.

Currently my parents are visiting from overseas, spending time with us and their grandsons. My dad, working in agriculture for well over 40 years, could not resist accompanying me at 3:30am to the vineyard during this mentioned freeze event. He told me a story I just had to share.

“A seasoned grape grower was walking down town one day and recognized a grape grower friend of his, selling hammers off his truck’s tailgate. After the normal greetings, his friend explained he had sold his vineyard recently, and he started this new business selling tools. The grape grower could not help but notice the low price which the hammers were selling for. Concerned he asked his friend: you are selling these hammers for $8 a piece, what do you get them for? His friend replied: I pay wholesale price of $12 a hammer. The grape grower commented: but you can’t make money like that! On which his entrepreneur friend replied: It might be, but I am still doing a lot better then when I was selling grapes.”

Anyway, it made me laugh. Frost or no frost, I’ll celebrate the new season with a glass of wine.

The Resilient Gopher by Steve Cass

Besides adverse weather, the biggest pest in the vineyard is the gopher. Anyone with a garden probably has wrestled with the best way to avoid the damage they can do to anything with a tasty root system. One day you have a healthy young tree, the next day it is dead. you wiggle the tree and it falls over, completely chewed off inches below the surface. there are poisons that can be effective but you never see the dead body, so you are not sure if it worked for a while. There are many creative and explosive techniques, some can be dangerous to the user.

Since we became a SIP Certified vineyard we are now trapping our gophers. Last year we trapped 460 of the little critters. The most common trap is called a Macabee, it grabs them with two steel prongs in the chest cavity, killing them right away. We started trapping again yesterday, our usual routine is to set our 40 traps and come back the next day to check them...yesterday we trapped 10 within minutes of setting the traps..the little critters are very active right now.

I have been doing a lot of digging around the winery to set up irrigation and raised gardens. Virtually every time I sink my shovel or backhoe into the ground I discover a warren of tunnels, nests, schools, and gopher shopping malls underground. I was watering a transplanted bush and the ground opened up and emptied the pool of water that had accumulated around the bush...I continued to water for 10-15 minutes thinking I would drown the little guy. Within 15 minutes, when my back was turned, the little guy had packed the gaping hole with mud from the inside. I repeated the drowning technique, and again he back filled the hole with mud.

I admire his DNA, and am donating the bush to his family welfare. It's next to the woodshed, behind Ted's Taco Bar .