A Paso diurnal: unfiltered & unfined. With dramatic swings, ripening & finding balance over time.
- Josh Jones
- Apr 13, 2022
- 21 min read
I woke up this morning with an eerie and familiar ring in my head – I had been dreaming terribly, but necessarily of my past. Stealing baseball cards from a friend, going right into his house with a smile when I was about 11 or 12. These memories coming back to me, is all part of the process. Just like the therapist I saw today and the other therapist I see every week, has to be done to make changes and grow, to continue on the journey. To get over all of this past despair and anger, misconception, shame and hate I have to go deep. Deep like the roots of a 100-year Zinfandel vine to find water, I struggle mightily below the surface like the swan’s furious kicking feet. A great blend is all about balance, like so much in this life.
That ring in my head, like the hum of a fluorescent light bulb giving off so much light and clarity but humming to the point of exploding, struggling to do so. Like the garage light in Paso where I thought of hanging myself, just like that light. They say suicides are contagious, that they rise after a high-profile life is lost just as the case when Robin Williams took his own life in 2014. The celebrity suicide effect, the contagion effect, well documented. In the four months after Robin Williams hung himself in a guest bedroom, an additional 10,000 suicides occurred, a 10% increase. 18, 690 suicides occurred in those four months compared with the expected number of 16,849. Typically, the highest increases occur in males aged 30 to 44. There was also a 32% increase in hangings over that four-month period of August to December 2014 in the US. I was not thinking about Robin Williams in the garage in Paso, I was thinking back to a movie burned in my mind – A Star is Born. I related to that one on many levels sitting in the garage in Paso all alone and in the dark, the light bulb burnt out. It was not contagion that came over me, it was the realization of my despair and inability to escape my fate. But I didn’t take action, I was working to change, oscillating back and forth on the edge. Just a few hours after I saw another formative movie Roadrunner, which I credit with the overwhelming light that has kept me on this planet. And now here I am, here I walk and breathe, hopeful of recovery. I bounced between Part from Me, hatred planted out of fear, I was lost as lost can be, as a mood swing was headed down. Then I pivot to the past tense and find the light, the part you’ll see, how true it is and how back then it possibly was impossible for you or me to know it. I keep telling myself, Down With the Shine. I would not dare take someone in love with me, where I’m going.
A few friends are in that very special happy place today, visiting Paso Robles California. Any thought of Paso brings unbelievably warming emotions to me, being there is an extremely wonderful feeling. In my journey, my mental health deconstruction and refurbishment, there is a special lesson for me that relates to the winemaking process. Relationships, parallels and powerful learnings are all around us, that is very encouraging for anyone looking for inspiration to take the next step forward. For about 6 years my wife and I really fell in love, all the way in love with Paso Robles CA. Enough to buy a house there, the one I was going to pack up when I got on that plane and saw Roadrunner and my life changed for the better. Paso Robles, thank you again. The best place on earth. Over the course of meeting so many great winemakers, seeing a beautiful land and the process of winemaking, I also had moments when I should have better appreciated my life and wake up, take the lessons and parallels in front of me to other aspects of my life. That is all in the past, and while I was a near-tragic late arrival to class, now I have that realization firmly in my mind and notebook for moving forward a better person.
The relation to wine is a tie-in to the process and the multiple factors coming together like a mosaic, the many hands and meandering path that is life - the cultivation of the land, the ecosystem needed for achieving the goal, the care and dedication day after day when the grapes are grown, then the initial harvest, which is only the beginning of another stage. The complexities and simplicities of the punching, the fermentation, the concerto of rigid control and free-wheeling creativity in the process of how wine is produced. The various specifications of sugar, acidity and alcohol level then how the product is aged, matured in barrels, then the sampling, blending, bottling, additional aging, and finally the beautiful product that continues to evolve over time until savored down to the last drop of its life. Over that end-to-end process the care of many hands and specialties come together, sometimes a little something extra or magic is needed, other times things need to settle out or be removed, but their presence was needed to go through the process of making the most beautiful, complex product. Sediment, fines, stems and then the fermentation from which new life springs are like the difficult experiences in life, the hurt in your life that makes you who you are. The hurt that can go one of two ways, but know there is a beautiful end product if you stay the course. Simplicity and complexity all together. All parts of the process aid in finding or becoming who you are - but some of those things, those thoughts or experiences, you have to eventually leave them behind and decant off the juice, to have its own new life and new chapter, now stronger and bolder than before the struggle. Fulfilling joy for others and standing up on its own in a bottle.
And the more I think about Paso Robles, I hope one day we can go back there to feel the energy and aura. A beyond special place, and when we moved to California, I was originally drawn to the wine because of my addictive personality. Wine is one of those most accepted substance to indulge in, but there was also the history, the science, the freedom and creativity that pulled me in further. I read endlessly about wine when we weren’t in Paso, even though I’m not much of a reader. I still tell myself that lie among others, but the lies we tell are also very telling. I counted the days until the next Friday road trip, looking at my wife by my side and the dogs in the rearview – all of our tails wagging uncontrollably, equally excited about going back to that special place.
There’s a lot of history to this story about California wine and Paso. It was in 1976, exactly the time when my grandfather died, something else was born, germinated, broke through the soil and sprung to life. A tremendous and now beautifully powerful force. Many know the story of the Judgement of Paris. When a group of wine experts in Paris, France through a blind taste test that pitted California wines against the French, and the underdog came out clearly on top. The judges, almost exclusively French, were shocked and stunned by the results. The two wines that came out on top were a Chateau Montelena Chardonnay and a Stag’s Leap Cabernet Sauvignon, both from California’s Napa Valley region. The wine world was forever changed. The rest is history, there might not be a Paso Robles if not for this defining victory for California wine. There is so much to go into about this historic moment but that is for another day. The Judgement of Paris, and we all know judgement is a heavy word. So how did this realization in Paris change things, well California winemaking became a new world order with many frontiersmen and women heading there to hone their craft and carve out their niche free from the traditional old world overhang. And from the growth in Napa, more and more frontiers of winemaking were discovered, including Paso Robles in the Central Coast of California almost equi-distant from San Francisco and Los Angeles. There is so much that sprung from the Judgement of Paris, Paso is just one beautiful outcome beyond the realization that provenance and history are meant to be challenged, expanded as we and the world should never stop moving forward and growing.
Focusing on Paso Robles, a gem of the Central Coast of California, just one of the countless ways Paso spoke to me was back to the rebellion and bucking the system theme in my psyche – just like Image comics put up their middle finger to the establishments of DC comics and Marvel comics in the early 1990s – the Judgement of print graphic creators and storytellers. A word bubble shouting clearly, we have a new direction here. I identified with this rebellion and yearning to break the mold and go in a different direction, something to prove. California winemakers and eventually Paso Robles said the same to France and all the wine rules and rigor, it must have felt like the Penn State football program did to me when I was 18. Imprisoned by a successful and powerful entity that continues to consume all to preserve its place. Many embraced it and thrived, others ran the other way in disgust, or through lack of patience and maturity. All this creativity, free-spirit energy colliding with France and the system, the established rules of how wine must be that are based on nothing. I can’t imagine trying to be a creative winemaker and trying to make my own way, following the love and possibilities, painting your own canvas when you have this net over you, not to keep the birds and vermin out, but holding you in. The traditional old guard saying you can only blend this grape with that grape and only in these proportions, from this area, and you have to name it this, period. Who wants to be an artist with such restriction, think about the famous, or infamous, graffiti street artist creative addict David Choe and saying to him, sure you can spray paint whatever you want (with only these two colors of course and the work has to be this specific size, represent this feeling or direction, oh yeah and the final work must only be pictures of dogs and cats just like the ones from last year and the year before that). But go be creative, go be yourself. Well just as so many other captives have done, the creative, frontier-seeking winemakers of the world headed west and broke free from history to write a new progressive chapter. California was the wild west and frontier in so many ways, from the gold rush, to how Hollywood was born, the winemaking revolution, sparking a new direction for comic artists – there are many.
Ok, I digress, but a story I will never forget about Paso Robles came from the winemaker and owner at L’Aventure which means “the adventure” in French, of course. I have been winetasting in Paso Robles at least 500 times over the time period of 2012 to 2019, and I hope thousands more in the future. I have picked up hundreds of bottles of wine from the winemakers in Paso, even been the proud member of 13 wine clubs, yes my lucky number, but that was the limit. Well, not exactly my limit, my wife reined us in on that and kept the list to 13, holding me back from myself – thank you – again (big surprise). L’Aventure, is a top-level operation, having received outstanding ratings in the wine world many times over (not that those are too meaningful, and I would even say L'Aventure been underrated over the years). L’Aventure, is one of the foundational wines from the central coast and Paso region. Of course, Justin Smith and his winery Saxum, or Justin Baldwin of Justin Vineyards and Winery have more accolades or recognition, a much larger enterprise as the latter does significantly higher volume, but I feel L’Aventure has a first-tier part of the Paso story. And nothing against Justin or Saxum, as they both deserve much respect and of course I have been a wine club member of both, continue with Saxum to this day (the only club we currently keep, because we moved to Puerto Rico and also because it took nearly 7 years on the waiting list). But also, there’s another part of the story - because I got in my head that Justin sold out, they jumped the shark, lost their identity and authenticity when Fiji water (The Wonderful Company) bought them out. And from there, now Justin is just a watered-down version of their past greatness, capitalized and gutted, and things have gone downhill. That establishment thing again. An equal blend of fact and my personal vile mixing together, the current day Justin wine is on par with their past, more or less, but when you have attended their wine club dinners, tasting events over the years and compare the pre-Fiji independent Justin with Fiji-Justin, it’s very different and sad for me. There was the fiasco from 2016 where they caught major shade, literally, by removing shade in the form of clear-cutting hundreds of sacred oak trees in order to fuel, literally fuel their business expansion. [That’s 5 tractor-trailer truck loads of trees a day for months.] Of course this was after the purchase by Fiji water, and it’s so ironic because much of the clear-cut land was to create an irrigation pond filled with well water to go along with more vineyards. Couldn’t they just use 10 million plastic bottles of Fiji water and dump the plastic somewhere? Ok, that is harsh, but there is real irony in the fact that the parent is a water company. And my detour continues, but we will eventually get back to the main road.
The sub-headline of the article from the Paso Robles Daily News is so oak-hard, dead on: ‘This is not the Paso Roblan spirit’ said by a neighbor of the winery on Chimney Rock Rd out in West Paso. Another local Paso winemaker, from Linne Calodo (also top-notch juice), captured the feeling perfectly – mind-blowing and something a James Bond villain would do. The audacity to build a 20 acre foot pond (6.5 million gallons) within a community of tiny domestic wells is purely disrespectful and lacks consciousness. Justin Smith said ‘Nobody who loved or lived in Paso would dare clear cut the forests. That is until Justin Winery/Fiji moved in.’
This resonates for me when talking about a big $4 billion dollar corporation coming in, robotically destroying and expanding, and goes so counter to the core fabric of what has made Paso Robles so special – see Paso is not the industrialized scale of Napa Valley, in terms of mega wine outlets, however the appellations that make up Paso are larger in area. Paso is the total opposite of the sanitized wine-tasting experience of those larger, more ‘established’ wineries from Napa. It’s how personal, organic and authentic the sense of community is, the many winemakers who came up from making wine in their garages, that you can sit down and talk wine with the winemakers and their teams, have a real bond and see what they do, and they all work to support each other, elevate together. A rising tide raises all boats. The mentality is wide-spread in Paso and still growing, they celebrate the successes of each other and the region, smartly this vibe is not dying off as the region gets more recognition and becomes less undiscovered. And I so hope it does continue. The times I’ve seen winemakers talking shop together, sharing equipment, ideas, helping each other out and progressing collectively, is special.
And that takes me back to my journey forward, my realization and message. Nothing great will be accomplished alone, together is the way. Being open, receptive, asking for help, accepting help, that is beautiful. We are all part of a community and need to act that way when it comes to ensuring each other’s mental health. Be a tool for your neighbor or friend, family in a way to truly progress together. Think of that special place Paso Robles.
In that same article from the Paso local newspaper about the Justin oak massacre, there is Justin Smith from Saxum, the winery which truly did put Paso on the wine map when they were awarded the Wine Spectator wine of the year in 2010 (number 1 wine in the world) and received the first 100 point rating for Paso. Robert Parker of Wine Advocate described Saxum’s James Berry Vineyard 2007 GSM blend as ‘profound’ and ‘utter perfection’. That is Paso Robles, profound and utter perfection in so many ways.
Justin Smith’s father James Berry Smith started their vineyard in the 1980s, planted it with Rhone varietals (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre mainly) in 1990, and Justin and his wife founded Saxum in 2002. Any time you see a wine from James Berry vineyard, buy it without hesitation, lock it down. And just to further show the connectivity of the Paso wine community, that quote above from Linne Calodo about the Justin oak tree massacre, that came from Linne Calodo’s Matt Trevisan, Justin Smith’s buddy going back all the way to college. And it was Linne Calodo that Justin and Matt started as their first wine endeavor together before Justin went in his own direction with Saxum, latin for stone, which we all know is a rock. And over the years the winemakers of Paso have been rocks for each other. Oh yes, and there is more, when we get back to L’Aventure, you further magnify the connectivity and community – working with Stephen Asseo the owner and winemaker at L’Aventure, yep you guessed it, you have Matt Trevison who previously worked also at Justin Winery as an apprentice. And if someone ever did a Paso winemaker family tree, it would be messy and criss-crossed, circling back and forth, beautifully messy as they all have worked, learned from and collaborated so much to achieve and advance. Just like the tendrils of the vines latching on to each other and wrapped tightly.
So I poo-poo’ed on Justin wine a bit with the oak tree issue, and it’s a little confusing with a couple different guys and wines named Justin. Sorry for that. And full disclosure, I still buy and often drink the Justin cabernet sauvignon, which at $23 (well now $29) from Costco in Puerto Rico is a blessing that its available, and its damn fine wine. And Justin’s Justification, don’t get me started on that one, one of my favorite all-time wines for innumerable reasons – the name and my crazy fixation with justifications, the blend which is just the perfect light/big-bodied bold combo that is a perfect balance for my personal tastes. Not to mention their bottles make the most beautiful wine bottle candles. I will not go further on my list of justifications here, lets just say Justification is up there for me, or at least it was for many years. Until Justin became unjustified. And I have a magnum of the 25th anniversary Justification I found at a wine shop around the corner, sitting in my wine fridge about 30 feet from me, always calling me, always at risk of vanishing, yumm. And for perspective, L’Aventure produces on average 7,500 cases a year, Justin is at least 10-times that. And Saxum, they are in the range of 5000 cases a year.
This was supposed to be about my memory and story of L-Aventure, so here that goes. The winemaker at L’Aventure, Stephan Asseo began making wine in 1982 after completing his education in, you guessed it, snobby, old guard Burgundy France. He made wine in France with his family for about 15 years, in Bourdeaux mainly – the New England Patriots region of wine in France, in the world for that matter. Over those 15 years, Stephan developed his own style and creativity, but in a maverick fashion and wanted to go beyond the limitations placed on French winemakers by the AOC (AOC is short for Apellation d’Origine Controlee, and refers to the governing body and standards for wines made in France – the rulemakers). So in 1996, to break free from the chains of the AOC, Stephan began looking for a new home, a frontier where he could make the wine he wanted to. He searched the world over, Argentina, Napa California, South Africa, they say Lebanon even. But he landed on Paso Robles and immediately fell in love, oh that feeling. Their adventure in Paso Robles began in a special place where Stephan’s freedom and creativity coupled with the rolling hills, the deep calcareous soils, maritime influences (just a few short miles from the Pacific Ocean) and the Templeton Gap that leads to a great diurnal – a picture perfect set of conditions and landscape to make ideal wines. And the wines I love the most are just what L’Aventure sought out to do, and do to perfection, blazing the trail forward. Some of L’Aventure and Paso’s finest wines beyond the traditional Rhone varietals, come from blending Bourdeaux and Rhone varietals together – sacrilege in France. Mixing a Bourdeaux Cabernent Sauvignon with a Rhone Syrah is criminal in France, the AOC collective jaw would drop on the floor, just like so many close-minded people have reacted when a mixed-race family walks by them at the grocery store, park or restaurant. It’s shameful and so wrong. As we know, it’s the diversity and combinations, possibilities in life that make it all so beautiful and take us to new places. A cab-syrah blend is unquestionably the best wine I have ever tasted or ever will, and what it represents is special to me also, from my special place in the world.
What is it that makes the wine so damn good in Paso Robles? The community mentality, the talent and creativity to breakthrough to new levels is part of it, but there are also other concrete factors like geography and climate. And here we must talk about that funky word from above, the diurnal. Not just as a critical factor behind Paso wines, the diurnal is an important concept for me as well, like when they say only through great pain and suffering can beauty be found. There is something about that in art, music, writing, wine – creativity is fueled by hurt and pain. The term diurnal, sounds like dyadic affect almost and refers to the degree of difference between the day and night temperature, so the term diurnal pertains to the local weather (ok so in some cases it is appropriate to talk about the weather like right now). The diurnal is the spread in temperature over a 24-hour period, the difference between the lowest and highest temperature. If it’s down to 40 degrees F at night and up to 90 dgrees F in mid-day then the diurnal is 50. The winder the swings, that is what we want to measure and see, day by day. And in Paso you get those exact and consistent extremes which are essential for the development of intense characteristics over the grapes development on the vine – struggle, challenge, diversity all of this makes the best wines, its measurable. And in the grapes you have a little bioreactor, where acidity or pH, sugar levels are closely monitored until the perfect moment to harvest, and from there so much more of the process begins – the arduous and long process of turning simple grapes into the most beautiful liquid on earth.
And that grape is like the swan, what you see when you look at a grape – on the outside, the skin, shiny and beautiful vs. what is happening inside with fluctuations in water content, sugar, pH, oscillating uncontrollably day after day until many burst, others are harvested and become a beautiful product, all through the diurnal.
Very typically in the summer to early fall months the daily temperature in Paso would swing from 50 to 100 degrees F. Its insanity you would think, and just like the wild insane swings I can relate to in my mind. And it takes many different, unique and well-timed, positioned influences to do this – the sea breeze from the Pacific Ocean, the proximity to dry, desert land not far off and the mountain passes that channel the air to just that special place. Every day and every night over the season, over the years. And the millions of years old coral limestone soil beneath, the solid nutrient rich foundation that contributes so much as well, but goes totally unnoticed to many. The central coast - Its like no place on earth to me.
So that’s the diurnal, but again I say there’s so many connections here that go beyond a limestone soiled vineyard. Think again about those grapes on the vine, the skin shows no emotion, you can’t tell if there’s a high sugar content, if the grapes have been babied by benign conditions or speeding out of control on the diurnal expressway every day, shocking and stressing them. The skin masks what is inside, the calm or the storm we don’t know. And this is another connection in my life, I would be amiss if I didn’t relate the wild temperature swings of the diurnal and what it does to the grapes to the hormones and nutrients a mother gives her child during pregnancy – thinking about my Mom, and I am 42 years later just understanding and appreciative of what she went through bringing me into the world for the first time. The right way for me to look at it all, finally, beyond the fog. And I certainly won’t be cursed and pessimistic old Josh here again, now I see things a bit clearly and conclude that all those stresses, anxiety and extra hormones my Mother was giving me as she hid her shame, her little secret over those 9 months of pregnancy, that was her uniquely-forged, intense, swinging diurnal that became me. A surprise vintage to say the least. And I hope she feels it was all worth it and turned out well in the end, her endless suffering over the time from when I was conceived through growing up. This grape of hers turned out to be quite unique as well, in a very precious and positive way looking ahead I see, not the negative I may have believed earlier in my life or the wreckage I caused up to now. The entropy was inescapable, self-created and caused further swings. I nearly burst many times, and I am sure she did as well. And it wasn’t just that 9-month time in the womb, just like it takes more than great farming to make a stellar wine. There are so many other influences in my process, just as in the wine-making process. All the development from my environment, what I have taken in, all those that have nurtured me, the years of growth, the numerous factors in play (my family, friends, lessons, experiences, climate so to speak). It just took many years for my grape to develop and then be properly punched down, to release and open up, to burst out of my skin in the right way, then to settle and let all the nasty things be separated away, for all the wild yeast around me to step in for their part of the process, to do their thing and ferment to just the right level, and then I needed to settle down further in the barrel for a few years (or decades) and contemplate, only to make me into something very special today, ready for bottling and further development. Mature, juvenile, complex, refined, flawed, unconventional, with value and knowledge from all past vintages, bringing joy and pride to the creators and others who had a hand in my development. And now I hope, and I pray, aging to become even better, perhaps even bringing a smile to someone else’s face. Now that’s positive spin, potentially lunacy also but I like it and I feel it down to the core of my vine and soul. And whether you are talking about the wine-making process from vine to glass, or human development from womb to tomb, entropy is working to sneak in and devastate the end product at every point along the way. Deliberate stabilizing, directed energy is needed to combat that tendency towards disorder, whether thinking about cutting away the weeds, trimming the vines, providing trestles to support growth, tending to the fields properly, defending against insects and vermin, mold, contamination, oxidation, bottle shock, danger and loss are lurking and must be avoided at every step.
The number of hands that contribute along the process, adding energy along the way is staggering. The process complexity itself, the influences, the care, attentiveness and thoughtful, deliberate action needed at every step of the way, every day. Active stability as we learn in the overall context of entropy is needed and applying energy in targeted fashion, you can not only defeat entropy and avoid disorder, you can bring about advantage and achieve a higher level result.
There are many great articles about the diurnal in Paso, like this interview which includes another great Paso winemaker we have gotten to know over the years, Damian the Australian owner of Brecon Estate who also landed in Paso Robles to follow his dreams and adventure with his wife Amanda and their beautiful family. I hope to continue writing my own diurnal story, perhaps finally finding balance. The therapist asked me today, to tell him about myself – I guess all the madness and disorder started with a single seed.
The Avett Brothers - Part From Me (from Magpie and the Dandelion 2013):
I was lost as lost can be Being praised for being found All that praise got lost on me As a mood swing was headed down
Apart from me I would not dare take someone in love with me Where I'm going The part you'll see How true it is and how back then It possibly was impossible for you or me to know it
Your touch was nothing more Than a child's goodbye and hello It always left me feeling Worse when it was time to go
Apart from me I would not dare take someone in love with me Where I'm going The part you'll see How true it is and how back then It possibly was impossible for you or me to know it
And most of us out there got fooled Cause the gold it glittered in the night We chased it fast like drunk buffoons The banker lived the artist died
And all our clothes were washed in gray All our buildings and our cars As the fluorescent light of day Bleached the sky and took the stars
Apart from me I would not dare take someone in love with me Where I'm going The part you'll see How true it is and how back then It possibly was impossible for you or me to know it
The Avett Brothers - Down with the Shine (from the Carpenter 2012):
Down with the shine, the perfect shine That poisons the well, and ruins my mind I get took for a ride every time Down with the glistening shine
It's in with the new, and out with the old Out goes the warm, and in comes the cold It's the most predictable story told It's in with the young, out with the old
Down with the shine, the perfect shine That poisons the well, and ruins my mind
I get took for a ride every time Down with the glistening shine
A belly full of high-dollar wine A fat hand, a fat wallet too Things change and get strange With this movement of time It's happening right now to you
Down with the shine, the perfect shine That poisons the well, and ruins my mind I get took for a ride every time Down with the glistening shine
It's a real bad time to bring up the truth Though we've searched we found no Fountain of youth Not in Spain, no where near anywhere Close to here
There's nothing good because nothing lasts And all that comes here, it comes here to pass I would voice my pain but the change wouldn't last All that comes, it comes here to pass
Down with the shine, the perfect shine That poisons the well, and ruins my mind I get took for a ride every time Down with the glistening shine
I get took for a ride every time Down with the glistening shine
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