California vineyard focus: Dusi and Paper Street, Paso Robles

This is the story of two vineyards: Dusi and Paper Street. They have much in common. Both are in the Paso Robles wine region of California and are similar in size at around 40 hectares.

They are owned by the Dusi family, who planted both of them – albeit 80 years apart. A pioneering mindset and boundless energy have passed through the family’s generations resulting in one vineyard, Dusi, preserved and revered, and the other, Paper Street, in relative infancy.

Scroll down for Clare Tooley MW’s tasting notes and scores of 14 wines from the Dusi and Paper Street vineyards

Mike Dusi inherited the legacy vineyard but also the desire to put down roots and create a new perspective. He found ‘a brutal piece of land’ yet ‘perfect’ in his eyes at 490m to 670m elevation: steep, rocky and dry.

The site needed to be discovered, literally. It took an intensive period of landscaping the white limestone soil, cleared by hand.

A ‘paper street’ is one that does not appear on maps or even in reality. Aerial drone footage reveals the vineyard now, akin to an archaeological dig. It’s a special site, unearthed and beautifully outlined on steep, rocky hilltops, curvaceous and deeply impressive.

One suspects the original Dusi vineyard, created in 1945 by Sylvester Dusi and his three sons Guido, Dante and Benito, came into being similarly through rugged determination; to build a future when the world was still reeling from war.

Comparing the Dusi and Paper Street vineyards

The vineyards’ natural differences are what make them and their wines unique. Soil type and drainage, elevation, microclimate and the age of their vines interplay and connect to direct the structural components of the wines produced.

The Dusi vineyard fruit profile is all you could hope for from old vines, predominantly Zinfandel, that have dug deep: highly expressive aromatically and richly concentrated on the palate. The tannins are complex, layered, tightly woven but immensely supple.

Despite the high alcohols across all the wines, there is a sense of vibrancy. These old vines in this old vineyard are playing a serious and seriously elegant game but are very much alive.

The Paper Street wines, by contrast, really do appear a little wilder, a little less tamed; equally vibrant but less controlled. They appear more restless, as if their relatively youthful vines in such old soil have yet to be truly tethered to it.

There are aromatic notes in the wines beyond fruit that encompass flowering herbs and ancient metals. At their core, there is a savoury element that is immensely appetising, cooling their full-blown alcohols. Bold wines, as audacious as the vineyard project itself.

A celebration of place

Family, fruit, and famous winemakers are common threads between the two vineyards. Both sites produce grapes sourced, assiduously, by highly acclaimed winemakers in search of quality.

This provides us with an opportunity to explore multiple iterations and interpretations of the vineyard sites. They are, therefore, a source of real joy for the most curious of fine wine lovers.

Tasting a selection of the most recent releases from these vineyards, crafted by J Dusi, Turley Wine Cellars, Glunz Family, Barton Family and McPrice Myers, is both a celebration of place and a sensory journey of nuance.

Like a story read by different voices, the words are the same but the emphasis on certain aspects changes from reading to reading, or in this case, glass to glass.

Unlike past decades where all the grapes found homes in other cellars, Janell Dusi, Mike’s daughter and Sylvester’s great-granddaughter, now keeps 20% of the fruit herself.

Her winemaking, under the J Dusi label, pays homage to her family’s grape farming history while simultaneously exploring her individual talent. She calls this ‘tradition with a new perspective’. Her wines have an elegant power to them, vigorous and authoritative.

Individual interpretations

Glunz and Barton, family wineries equally rich in tales of determination and dedication, craft their own interpretations.

The story goes that three generations of the Glunz family went up to pick fruit at the newly established Paper Street vineyard to find three generations of Dusi family ahead of them already hard at work. Their wines make for sumptuous family suppers.

Joe Barton, named San Luis Obispo Winemaker of the Year 2020, seeks to express the character of Paso and the intricate nature of individual vineyards. His Paper Street Mourvèdre is a delicious interpretation of both the variety and its unique location. More impressively, it conveys their relationship in vinous form.

Larry Turley’s belief in both the Dusi and Paper Street vineyards stems from his and winemaker Tegan Passalacqua’s treasure hunt for California old-vine fruit. They journey to wherever there is interesting Zinfandel.

The Turley wines, and winemaker McPrice ‘Mac’ Myer’s bottles, are joyful celebrations of the grape: unashamedly bold, big and beautiful.

The story of such singular vineyards explores the complex nature of our connection to the earth. The sites predate man’s existence by millennia, but their potential has taken a human hand to reveal.

Deciding which takes priority is the quandary faced by the winemakers every vintage. Do they want their name on the final bottle or the name of the vineyard?

The answer surely dictates our vision and our appreciation of the wines, and we are the richer for the sensory exploration, and delight, involved.

Dusi & Paper Street vineyards: a taste of terroir in 14 wines

Related content

Paso Robles: California’s quintessential yet eclectic wine region

California family farming: succession and progression

Duckhorn Portfolio: the billion-dollar empire