A Rite of Paso: Paso Robles Wine Country

Paso Robles: The town where Jesse James licked his wounds, where James Dean met his maker and where Ignacy Paderewski ditched his piano in favor of zinfandel. The largest stand-alone wine appellation in Calfornia, Paso Robles is often overlooked by tourists and wine critics, and for the most part, that’s the way that Roblans would like to keep it. Suspended midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco with a culture bouncing between surferhipster, Bowzer and Bauhaus, wine-wise and wild, wild West , Paso Robles is neither Napa NOR Sonoma. It is more a place than a state of mind. Intoxicology Report’s Chris Kassel spent harvest month, 2013 in Paso Robles, sleeping in the vineyards, schlepping in the cellars and slumming with the loco locals—loving every minute of it. This is his fractured Paso story—with all the grit, the grapes, the guts and the glitter left intact.