Togeth­er with Terry’s fam­i­ly, they designed and con­struct­ed the 3,000 square foot steel-framed win­ery and tast­ing room, incor­po­rat­ing 150 year old barn wood sal­vaged from a farm in Iowa. Though small, the win­ery build­ing boasts a full pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty along with two inti­mate tast­ing rooms, with Jen­nifer and Terry’s per­son­al touch­es evi­dent throughout.

Estate Vine­yard

“When all the com­po­nents come togeth­er, they make a tru­ly unique expres­sion of Paso Rob­les ter­roir, light on its feet but still packed to the brim with char­ac­ter and inten­si­ty.” — Justin Smith on Ter­ry Hoage Vine­yards fruit

We are sit­u­at­ed on the con­i­cal hills of west Paso Rob­les in the Wil­low Creek Dis­trict. Here the cal­care­ous rich soils and the large diur­nal tem­per­a­ture shifts con­tribute to a unique grow­ing envi­ron­ment. This allows for great acid reten­tion dur­ing lat­er sea­son ripen­ing and ulti­mate­ly a dynam­ic and fresh pro­file in the fin­ished wine. 

Farm­ing

“As con­sci­en­tious stew­ards of the land, we use all avenues avail­able to us to ensure the preser­va­tion of vital nat­ur­al resources.” — Ter­ry Hoage

One of our strengths as a small grow­er is the abil­i­ty to micro-man­age the vine­yard over the grow­ing sea­son. We can break the vine­yard blocks down into small sec­tions and make the nec­es­sary deci­sions dur­ing the sea­son to grow the fruit for a Pick, 5 Blocks, or Hedge.

Wine­mak­ing

“We believe in a min­i­mal­ist approach to wine­mak­ing, with atten­tion to detail in the vine­yard being essen­tial. Good wine­mak­ing begins in the vine­yard.” ‑Phil LaMontagne

We hand pick the estate fruit at night. After we bring the grapes in, we sort it and use an array of fer­men­ta­tion tech­niques to help craft the unique pro­files of each of the wines. The fin­ished fer­men­ta­tions move to bar­rel, are blend­ed at 10 months, and age for an addi­tion­al 8 – 16 months before bottling.

Philip LaMontagne

Wine­mak­er

Phil LaM­on­tagne took over the entire wine­mak­ing pro­gram here at TH in 2017. He grew up in Paso Rob­les, right with­in the Wil­low Creek sub-AVA, and grad­u­at­ed sum­ma cum laude from the Wine and Viti­cul­ture pro­gram at Cal Poly in San Luis Obis­po. Before he set­tled into being a full-time wine­mak­er, Phil spent some time as a musi­cian and he com­bines cre­ativ­i­ty and tech­nique to bring an arti­san spir­it to each of the wines he makes.

“Each har­vest is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to cap­ture a unique and authen­tic snap­shot of a wine, from a spe­cif­ic time, and a spe­cif­ic place. Mak­ing a wine that is hon­est and pays homage to the vari­etal, the vin­tage, and the site, is always my goal.”