Bradley N.
Yelp
Field Recordings is one of the more refreshingly unique wineries at the moment in all of California, the product of a one-in-a-million sort of serendipity in which a vineyard manager who was trained to grow and graft grape vines for others launched himself in his early 30s headfirst into the wine-making process, with a range of innovative and eccentric results that make wine tasting fun again. Fun in that Bonny Doon sort of way, back when Randall Grahm was on his first major rise to prominence. Fun in a playful, wine-in-cans sort of way. Fun in a Pétillant Naturel Chardonnay sort of way. Fun in a Salvador Dali on your Pinot Noir labels sort of way. Fun because the wines are well made, from unique sites in and around San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. Fun because when you come for a tasting, you never really know what you are going to get. It's like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but with wine.
My favorite FR wine is still the Jurassic Park Chenin Blanc, which was not available on the occasion of our first visit to their Tin City outpost, next door to Giornata. Neither was the Grenache rosé, but what was open for tasting was very, very good, if at the higher end of FR's price scale: limited lot Spanish Springs Chardonnay (aged entirely in acacia barrels) and Derbyshire Pinot Noir from tiny vineyards with extreme ocean exposure, producing really tight, structured, compelling wines. A range of Paso Robles reds filled in the rest. A $10 tasting fee is waived with a 2 bottle purchase, which is quite reasonable for the area, especially since you can also select from the Fiction line that is priced under $20, or opt for a great $20 Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet/Franc/Petit Verdot/Merlot blend, sourced from Santa Barbara rather than Paso, giving it earthier, smokier elements to balance out the fruit and tannin.
The tasting room interior is cool and functional, with a large glass-topped tasting table where visitors gather around for pours from bottles or cans. Decor is fairly minimal, in keeping with the working winery, Tin City wine ghetto vibe. You can ask to tour the next-door wine making facility, filled to the roof with fermenters, barrels, tanks, hoses, forklifts, and who knows what else.
Plus, if you've had your fill of huge Paso Robles wines for one trip, a few blocks away is Tin City Cider Co., where three local winemakers, including Field Recording's very own Andrew J., put their skills to good use making top-shelf alcoholic apple ciders as if they were making fine wine.
Bear in mind that FR isn't a Napa style tasting room where you'll be lavished with attention and made to fall in love with the whole "wine country" idyll. This is a more "blue collar" (note the quotes here) kind of spot, where you won't feel bad about pouring out a wine that doesn't meet your fancy, where you can be judgemental about wine and not feel like you are committing a mortal sin, where you can find something special for under or around $30 that bears some of the maker's marks of a winemaker who knows what it means to get one's hands and fingernails dirty, who can crack open a beer, or uncork or unscrew a wine, gaze out into the parking lot outside the door, and ... remember how it all began.
Wine - at its optimal best - is an endlessly repeated journey from grape to glass. Or can. Whatever. It's been part of human history for a really long time, and every once in a while, someone or something new comes along and writes a small chapter to add to that collective narrative. Field Recordings is crafting its very own even as we speak. Cheers to that!
