Open Year Round
History:
As of April 2002, a familiar Paso Robles wine label has a place on the map - literally. After almost a decade of learning about the art of winegrowing and winemaking, Alex and Monica Villicana opened their Westside Paso Robles tasting room, giving their hand crafted, award-winning wines a place to call home and fans of the label a place to visit.
The Villicana label owes its existence to an unsuccessful culinary school. After college, Alex decided to pursue his interest in food and wine and enrolled in a culinary program. When the school failed to open, he turned his attention to winemaking and took a job working the harvest at a local Paso Robles winery in 1990. He also began taking viticulture and enology classes at U.C. Davis.
In 1992, Alex was told that if he wanted to hand harvest some Gamay grapes, which were left over from a mechanical harvest, from a local vineyard that he could have the grapes for himself. He jumped on that offer and made his first wine and caught the winemaking bug. In 1993, he was at the right place at the right time when he was offered three tons of Cabernet Sauvignon fruit from the famed Tchelistcheff vineyard in the Adelaida hills. He was lucky enough to get fruit from that vineyard again in 1994, and was hooked on Paso Robles, not only for the quality of fruit being grown, but also because of the cooperative spirit and energy of the local winemakers.
The year 1999 represents an important milestone for the winery. As of this vintage, the Villicanas are finally able to crush their estate grown fruit. Villicana Winery currently produces fewer than 2,000 cases and is planned to top out at 5,000 cases. Alex and Monica's plan is to stay small so they can really focus on continually increasing quality and generating powerful small-lot wines.
