Food Production - , ,
As home to a San Francisco Chronicle's Sweepstakes winning Best Red Wine, we at Écluse are dedicated to producing limited production, handcrafted, award-winning wines from our very own Lock Vineyard. Our family owned boutique winery is a true reflection of this special place we call home. Nestled in the gently rolling hillside terroir on the desired Westside of the Paso Robles AVA, we feature Bordeaux and Rhone style wines, as well as our fabulous Zinfandel. We have always believed that in order to create great wine, you have to start with great fruit. We began as growers ourselves, sourcing our fruit to local, prestigious winemakers. Steve decided to produce a few barrels of our Lock Vineyard fruit by using a minimalistic winemaking approach. Then after winning several awards and medals for his amateur wines, Steve decided to take the plunge and produce the first vintage of our Écluse Syrah and Écluse Cabernet Sauvignon from our very own Lock Vineyard. This 2001 vintage was released in 2003 and was exceptionally well received. In 2008, we decided to build our own winery on our 30 acre Lock Vineyard. It has proven to be extremely beneficial to have our winery and vineyard in the same location. The first vintage we made onsite produced our most highly allocated wine to date, our 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon from Lock Vineyard, which received the Sweepstakes Award for Best Red Wine from the San Francisco Chronicle, the largest competition of American wines in the world!