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California Wine Atlas

Paso Robles

AVA · San Luis Obispo County · District 8

27 CFR 9.84 · established 1983-10-04 · last amended 2009-01-21

Heat class III · 1991-2020 normals

Climate normals in three numbers

3,412°F-days

, Apr 1 – Oct 31

167 GridMET cells cover this region

III

raw 4 km GridMET would say IV

62mm

season rain, Apr 1 – Oct 31

24 mm of it in the , Sep 1 – Oct 31

Warm and cool vintages since 1980

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Rain across the season, and at harvest

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The boundary

This boundaryClick to open

Hovering a shaded region names it; a click opens its page.

Measured vineyard area

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Drought categories, year by year

San Luis Obispo County — not Paso Robles

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What's in the ground

7.4

pH, 1:1 water

14.1cm

, whole profile

103cm

to

Well drained

, dominant condition

Distribution across 198 · mean ◆, median │, p10–p90 bar

7.4
2.0%
24.7%
available water
14.1cm
depth to restriction
103cm

Dominant

  • 22.8%
  • 14.4%
  • 13.4%
  • 8.2%
  • 3.6%

198 map units · soil described over 99.1% of the region’s area · 3.5% is water, rock outcrop or other non-soil · 74% of the described area has a restrictive layer within the profile.

Sand, silt and clay, against every other appellation

CLAYSANDSILT

Loam

42% sand · 33% silt · 25% clay

Sandier than 53% of California appellations and clayier than 69%. Each grey point is one appellation’s topsoil; appellations nest, so this is a distribution of places rather than of land.

Plus 11% rock fragments by volume, which the triangle does not describe — the three fractions are of the fine-earth material only.

Elevation, slope and aspect

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Producers

A curated roster, not a census — only source-verified entries appear, 2772 published across the atlas.

The roster places a producer in the appellation it names, never in a county — a winery’s address is a street in an AVA, and filing it under the county would be a claim about which of an AVA’s counties it sits in. So this region has no roster of its own, and 16 producers are entered in the appellations within it:

Bearing acreage by variety

San Luis Obispo County · District 8

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Price per ton

San Luis Obispo County · District 8

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The appellation in federal law

The boundary, in the government’s own words (312 words)

(c) Boundaries. The Paso Robles viticultural area is located within San Luis Obispo County, California. From the point of beginning where the county lines of San Luis Obispo, Kings and Kern Counties converge, the county line also being the township line between T.24S. and T.25S., in R.16E.: (1) Then in a westerly direction along this county line for 42 miles to the range line between R.9E. and R.10E.; (2) Then in a southerly direction for 12 miles along the range line to the southwest of corner of T.26S. and R.10E.; (3) Then in a southeasterly direction, approximately 5.5 miles to a point of intersection of the Dover Canyon Jeep Trail and Dover Canyon Road; (4) Then in an easterly direction along Dover Canyon Road, approximately 1.5 miles, to the western border line of Rancho Paso de Robles; (5) Then, following the border of the Paso Robles land grant, beginning in an easterly direction, to a point where it intersects the range line between R.11E. and R.12E.; (6) Then southeasterly for approximately 16.5 miles to the point of intersection of the township line between T.29S. and T.30S. and the range line between R.12E. and R.13E.; (7) Then in an easterly direction along the T.29S. and T.30S. line for approximately 3.1 miles to its intersection with the eastern boundary line of the Los Padres National Forest; (8) Then in a southeasterly direction along the eastern boundary line of the Los Padres National Forest for approximately 4.1 miles to its intersection with the R.13E. and R.14E. line; (9) Then in a northerly direction along the R.13E. and R.14E. line for approximately 8.7 miles to its intersection with the T.28S. and T.29S. line; (10) Then in an easterly direction for approximately 18 miles to the range line between R.16E. and R.17E.; (11) Then in a northerly direction for approximately 24 miles to the point of beginning.