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About Us
Tassajara is a small family owned winery in Paso Robles, California. A vision of a brother and sister to produce small hand crafted lots of Rhone wines from the Paso Robles Viticultural Area. Craig Reed has been winemaker for Martin & Weyrich Winery in Paso Robles for 10 years. Heather (Reed) Rammel with a marketing degree has been the National Sales and Marketing manager for Martin & Weyrich Winery for 3 years.
We named our Winery Tassajara after one of the tallest mountains in the Santa Lucia Range that runs along the Pacific coast protecting Paso Robles from the marine air and making it one of the best regions for the production of fine wines in California.
About Paso Robles
Paso Robles is located directly between Monterey and Santa Barbera about 18 miles off the coast of the Pacific. The Santa Lucia Mountain Range protects Paso Robles from the Pacific coast. We have very warm days, but very cool evenings. Daytime temperatures during the growing season can reach in excess of 100 degrees F., but due to the proximity to the Pacific Ocean our evening temperatures drop by 40 to sometimes 50 degrees. This makes for excellent wine-growing conditions, plenty of sun and heat during the day for color and sugar accumulation and cool evenings for flavor concentration.
Rainfall in the area is also quite diverse with average rain on the East side being about 8 inches annually and up to sixty inches in the far Western reaches of the AVA.
Paso Robles is a large AVA (American Viticultural Area) that straddles the Salinas River on the East and West. What we feel really makes Paso Robles interesting to grow wine-grapes other than the unique climate is the diverse soil differences throughout the region. From Sandy and Clay-Loams on the lower lying areas to Clay and broken rock on the hillside locations with Calcareous outcroppings throughout the AVA makes for expressive wines with lots of concentration.
The Ward Vineyard
Though warm Paso Robles may seem an odd place to originate pinot noir, wait until you hear that the Ward Vineyard is located in Contra Costa Coutny – more often home to heat-loving Zinfandel than the delicate pinot!
But the tiny Ward vineyard is found in an area known as Lamorinda - a conjunction of the names for the towns of Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda, just East of the Caldecott tunnel. And anyone who doubts the coolness of this growing area has never attended a Cal Shakes performance at Orinda's famed outdoor theater. I've heard tell that Cal Shakes is a popular venue for young men to take their dates, knowing full well the balmy afternoon inevitably gives way to a shiveringly cold and foggy evening, thus assuring his body heat will be greatly appreciated. Add a glass or two of Tassajara and the rest is history.
Similarly, the Ward vineyard is a micro-climate plot where pinot noir thrives in the warmth of the day and the cool of the night. It is not the only pinot vineyard in Lamorinda, but to be sure, the area is dominated by Zin, Syrah and Petite Sirah. You’ll have to spend lots of time with Google to find any other wine that bears its name on the label. Most of the grapes go into the Ward’s own wine, and as far as I know, this is the only other wine from their fruit.
