California is full of men creating wine.

Winemaking males have created their product in California for over two centuries. Because of the brute strength it takes to plant, grow and manage a vineyard for creating wine, we see male winemakers everywhere we go from Temecula through Santa Barbara on it into the Foxen Canyon to Monterey on into Northern California.

New Information:
Since this was written in 2012 Derby Wine Estates moved and is now located in Historic Almond Growers building at 525 Riverside Ave. in Paso Robles.

During our last visit to Paso Robles the local media reported on two women creating wine in the area and we thought to ourselves, “What does a female winemaker’s taste palate want to create?”

Tiffinee Vierra and Janell Dusi both create wine in a male-dominated industry. Ms. Dusi’s Wine is not available in any standalone tasting room (it’s available in the downtown Paso Robles wine center.) However, Ms. Vierra’s wine is available in a small tasting room on the Highway 46 corridor through Paso Robles, so we visited there. Derby Wine Estates tasting room is a temporary trailer located at 5620 Highway 46 directly across from Broken Earth Vineyards (The old Eos Winery.)

I was expecting a soft wine palete, expecting not to see any big  tannic acid reds. And, that’s exactly what we found. She creates a full line of five white wines and six reds, included in this grouping are two Rhone wines.

Here’s the rundown on her wine and our rankings (we didn’t taste all wines):

White
2008 Pinot Gris
✰   2008 Pinot Noir
2007 Reserve Pinot Noir
2007 Sparkling Brut Rose
2008 Fifteen 10 White Rhone blend (Viognier, Roussanne & Marsanne)

Red
✰ + 2007 Fifteen 10 Red Rhone (Syarah, Grenache & Mourvedre)
✰ + 2007 Zinfandel
✰ +  2006 Implico (Cab, Merlot, Cab Franc & Petit Verdot)
✰  2007 Petite Sirah
2006 De Facto Port

We purchased three bottles of wine here, the Red Rhone, Zinfandel  at $28 each and the Implico. We recommend you explore her wine and compare it to the other wonderful wines of Paso Robles. If you like softer wines this is the place to go. Her pricing ranges from $20 for the Pinot Gris’s and as high as $54 for her Sparkling Brut Rose and produces anywhere from 98 and 847 cases of her wines.

Notes on Our Wine Ranking System – We use a very simple way of ranking wines. We do this with a ✰ system so that no wine maker is ever insulted by our note taking. A ✰ means the wine is good, we have no problem drinking this wine anywhere (specially at a party when the wine might be hosted.) When you see a minus sign before the ✰ we’re not liking it too much.

The exciting part is when you see pluses after the ✰. A ✰ + Means you’ve got our attention and we might buy this wine. A ✰ ++ Means we’re hooked and were going to buy this wine. Our codes are listed below.

– – ✰  means -What’s next on your list of wines
– ✰  means -Not liking it too much
✰ means  -We’ll drink this wine, expecially 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.