Softer California Wine From The Cool Central Coast’s Wine Ghetto
The path to these California winemakers dream meandered through Spain, Paso Robles and Lompoc. Thusly the name Camins2Dreams, or translated, Path to Dreams.
Tara Gomez & Mireia Taribo met each other working for J. Lohr Winery in Paso Robles and eventually decided to make their own wine. Their winery resides in the Wine Ghetto area of Lompoc on California’s central coast. Vandenberg Space Force Base, where Space X’s Falcon 9 rockets blast heavenward, sits on the western edge of this small town.
The pair eventually married, spending their days creating wine and sharing it with other wine lovers. Their wine is very soft on the palate, created from grape sourced from around the Santa Rita Hills AVA.
Together they create soft wines like Gruner Veltline, Pet-Nat, Albarino and Gamay but also source grape to create Syrah, Grenache and Graciano. These heartier grapes are also soft, as they finish their wine in neutral barrels, older barrels with less oak influence.
On top of those soft neutral barrels, they pour wine through Haley’s Corker, aerating the wine and softening up the tannins. These ladies like very soft wine.
What did we taste?
2022 Albarino $30 ✰+
2022 Gamay $40 ✰
2021 Carignan $38 ✰
2022 Syrah $46 ✰+
2021 Grenache $48 ✰+
It’s interesting to see their tasting notes include pH and TA measurements. By example, their Grenache harvested from Christy & Wise Vineyard was 14% alcohol, pH was 3.9 and tannic acid was 4.7 per gallon. The last two numbers are something we’ve never seen in a tasting flight sheet. Tara Gomez, the chemist in the duo told us any wine with <3.65 pH is very ageable wine.
Our group of seven spent a bit of time conversing about the relationship between acid and pH (potentia hydrogenii). When pH is up, add acid and the pH drops. It’s the same when balancing your pool water. But we’ll stop here because, to understand it better, you’ll need to take a deeper dive in a chemistry class.
The Wine Ghetto where their taste room is found, resides just astearn of Lompoc’s primary hospital near Home Depot. It’s a little hard to find. Bordered by residential tracts and hospital parking lots you’ll find them mixed in with other small wine producers, HVAC repair & roofing companies etc.
If you’re tastes lean toward softer wine with less tannin this is the place for you. Just be careful, call in advance to make sure they’ll be open. Most of the wineries in this area are only open Friday through Sunday or by appointment. Tasting fee is $20, waived with a purchase of three bottles.
Some notes on our wine ranking system.
Bill & Erin Hodge write about California Wine, the estates & winemakers producing them and educational information about Vino. Living in California Wine Country provides a front row seat to the places you want to visit the most here in the Golden State.
– -✰ 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.
