Edna Valley Bottles of Wine – Sextant Winery

Edna Valley – Bottles of Wine
from California’s Gold Coast

Looking for a good bottle of wine, make time for exploring the Edna Valley AVA just south of San Luis Obispo. You’ll find 25 or so wineries nestled in this small valley. Sextant Winery is one of the bigger vintners of the wineries we visited recently.

Housed in what they claim to be the old Edna Valley Township main building, Sextant pours its wine in antique splendor. It is located inside an old building with much antique surrounding it, and on it. From wagons to tractors to bicycles on the wall it was a feast for antique hunter eyes.

The gray stained exterior  building houses a bustling four sided wine tasting bar along with a gourmet deli. It was an active place with two bartenders running the show. This is a good place to eat lunch, whether you purchase from them or not, with a small patio and tables right outside.

While their corporate headquarters resides in Paso Robles this tasting room is on Highway 227 near the old Edna town site. Diving north on Coast Highway, take the main downtown off ramp through downtown Arroyo Grande to get there.

It’s located in the Edna Valley wine country, squeezed between SLO and Arroyo Grande. Much of Sextant’s wine is grown in Paso Robles. Since 2010 they’ve maintained a barrel and tasting room on Highway 46 West. The owners, Craig and Nancy Stoller come from a family who owned and operated Sunridge Nursery, a provider of wine grape plants to the industry. They planted their first block of wine in Templeton (South of Paso Robles) planting mostly Zinfandel clone’s and ENTAV selections from France.

What did we taste? Here goes:
2012 Edna Valley Chardonnay (stainless) $25 -✰
2013 X-Series Albarino $28 ✰+
2012 Windmere Edna Valley Pinot Noir $31 ✰
2012 Wheelhouse Paso Robles Zinfandel (with Syrah & Petit Sirah) ✰+
2010 Passage Paso Robles GSM $45 ✰+
2012 Night Watch (blended Zin, Syrah, Petite Sirah) $35 ✰+
2012 X-Series Syrah $34 ✰+

We recently enjoyed a bottle of 2012 Wheelhouse Zinfandel blended with Syrah & Petit Sirah (which accounted for its wonderful bouquet.) It was bold palette with raspberries, cherries and anise. The bottle of wine had 14.7% alcohol, harvested from their RBZ Vineyards.

You can find some Sextant wine at places like Total Wine. You’ll also find their bottles of wine at Costco, however, it’s their table wine. We’ll need to check it out.

Bill Hodge & Erin O’Neill-Hodge enjoy a good bottle of wine, visiting and enjoying California wineries from Lake County to Orange County, from the Paso Robles Gold Coast to Gold Country and from Lodi to Temecula.

Some notes on our wine ranking system.

– -✰ means -What’s next on your list of wines
-✰ means -Not liking it too much
✰ means -We’ll drink this wine, especially if it’s hosted!
✰+ means -You’ve got our attention and we might buy this wine.
✰++ means -We’re hooked and we’re going to buy this wine.
When you see -✰/✰+ with a slash, it means we disagree.