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.”

Cyril Pujadas

Vine­yard Supervisor

Cyril joined the team in the Spring of 2018 as a har­vest intern. He grew up in Toulouse, locat­ed in the south­west part of France, and grad­u­at­ed from Culi­nary School. Before set­tling in Paso and shift­ing his career to the wine indus­try, he worked as a Restau­rant Man­ag­er and Som­me­li­er in restau­rants and hotels for 12 years and lived in Lon­don, Las Vegas, and New York.

Cyril stepped in as our Vine­yard Super­vi­sor in 2019 and con­tin­ues to play a large role in mon­i­tor­ing the replant­i­ng of our prop­er­ty. He assists Phil in all aspects of the wine­mak­ing process and con­tin­ues to learn and appre­ci­ate the way wine­mak­ing is approached in California. 

Stephanie Robinson

Busi­ness Development

Stephanie is orig­i­nal­ly from Chica­go and joined the TH team towards the end of 2020, short­ly after fin­ish­ing up her Wine and Viti­cul­ture degree from Cal Poly in San Luis Obis­po. While wine was not on her radar before mov­ing out to the Cen­tral Coast, she fell in love with the chem­istry behind it dur­ing her time study­ing abroad in Ade­laide, South Australia. 

Stephanie cur­rent­ly over­sees the tast­ing room and wine club and holds her WSET Lev­el 3 with Mer­it. She enjoys learn­ing about every aspect of the indus­try and helps out on the pro­duc­tion side when she can.