When you are parents to an active, creative, inquisitive, overtly-social, never-seems-to-stop-talking-like-EVER toddler, you don’t mess around when it comes to date night.

You’ve got something along the lines of three hours to enjoy dinner, drink wine and indulge in adult conversation. This is not, therefore, a time for risky experimentation. You do not go for totally unknown quantities – you go for ringers.

Which is precisely what I did this week when (a rather harried and child-care-worn) Mrs. Dudette and I hit our fave local Italian joint on date night (if you visit, I’ve got three words for you: Cannelonni di Carne!).

Anyway… I tough week of childcare for Mrs. Dudette inspired me to double-team her ass, vinously-speaking, pulling two such elegant and downright-gorgeous ringers from the “holy-crap-where-am-I-gonna-put-this-stuff”-sized sample pool – a vintage bubbly direct from the area that started it all, followed by one of the brightest stars of the shining Pinot Noir galaxy that is the Sonoma Coast.  Yes, both are flirting with the too-rich-for-my-blood price range, and at least one of them is flirting with where-the-f*ck-can-I-find-a-bottle-of-this-already availability due to its small production, BUT… both are stellar, expressive, beautiful wines, and are well-worth your wine geek time seeking them out. Now, since I’m flirting with stringing-too-many-words-together-with-hyphens territory, let’s get to the real meat on this plate…

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There’s one thing you need to know about Paso Robles wine country.

It can get hot.

And I’m not talking about the Summertime temperatures, or even the Indian-Summertime temperatures, which had busted through the 100F mark not too long before my visit to Paso in October.

No, I’m talking about the wines.

After tasting through a small score of the vino on offer from several of Paso’s wine producers, the most prominent takeaway was that there were so many wines that were made from very, very ripe fruit – wines that generally exceeded 14% abv in the whites and regularly hit over 15% abv in the reds.

That is not an inevitable conclusion for Paso Robles wine.  And I know this because it wasn’t always the case.

During my Paso visit, I dined at the home of Gary and Marcy Eberle, who own Eberle Winery in Paso. Over the course of our meal (also attended by representatives of several other Paso producers), Gary opened a few bottles of Eberle Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve from the early 1980s. Those wines were a far cry from being dead – in fact, they were vibrant, with juicy red fruits underpinning aromas of dried herbs.  In other words, those wines were refined, food-friendly, and eminently drinkable.  The abv? About 13%…

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I need to preface this tale of a (somewhat-failed) experiment by telling you (aside from the normal disclosure that I received all of the products as samples for possible review) that I have nothing against massive on-line tasting events like the recent #ChampagneDay (or its also recent big-brother #CabernetDay).

I’ve got a long history (since Day One, actually) with TasteLive.com, who kind of started the whole kumbaya-peace-love-and-Marsha-Brady-let’s-all-taste-together-on-line thang in the first place, after all.  And I love the communal aspect, and the conviviality, that are at the heart of those tasting events.

It’s just that it doesn’t feel as though Champagne or Cabernet Sauvignon need their own tasting days. I mean, from a brand-recognition standpoint, these wines are like Pepsi or the Chicago Bulls.  It’s not like no one’s ever heard of them, or never drinks the stuff, or that they have pricing issues on the high end.

So I’m kind of waiting for the underdog wine tasting day on twitter, myself (#BonardaDay, anyone?) before I get too excited about these grape-themed events.

But the twitter peeps were a persistent bunch, asking me (many times) about participating in #ChampagneDay last week, so eventually I caved into the pressure… of my wife telling me that the event was a good enough excuse for her to want Champagne and take-out sushi for dinner that night (which is a f*cking EPIC food-and-wine pairing, by the way). Because I am a slave to the evil twin drives of surprise and novelty, and because I know my place in the Roberts household (lower on the totem pole than my daughter, but slightly higher than my dog… I think), I decided to to pop open the bubbly and pair it with… samples of cookies specifically designed (or, at least, specifically marketed!) to pair with Sparkling wine.

The results? Not-so-Epic…

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Spending an hour of so over lunch with Cypher Winery’s self-proclaimed “Winemaker, Troublemaker, and Firestarter” Christian Tietje is a bit like experiencing a small vinous indoor dust devil. In the wake of this whirling dervish of a man, you are left with remnants of well-crafted comfort food, open bottles and empty, stained glasses strewn about, and a lingering sense of bewilderment at the bold (some might say egotistical) pronouncements such as “yeah man, this is totally gonna be a 95, 96-point wine when the press gets a hold of it.”

Yeah, man – and this article is totally gonna win me some James Beard awards, you know, after they judges all wise up and stuff.

My whirlwind tour through Christian’s wines took place last week at Paso Robles’ Farmstand 46, a restaurant partnership between Tom Fundaro and the owners of Four Vines Winery.  Christian is probably best-known as the principal winemaker behind Four Vines’ high-octane, high-scoring releases. But his new venture, Cypher, has Tietje stretching out a bit and – dare we say it – maturing.  Certainly the single varietal Cypher bottlings have a lot of promise, which you’d probably expect from a talented winemaking team – but what you might not expect is that they also display a good deal of craftsmanship and… restraint…

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