Chateau Margene

Very Nice… Very Knowledgeable… Unpretentious.

This is by far my favorite winery in paso. We did the private tour again and it was so informative and interesting. I have such a respect for the drive, passion, and hard work that goes into making this wine. We will be club members forever.

Visited Château Margene over the Labor Day weekend. The owner Michael Mooney gave us a tour of the winery as well as did our tasting. Very friendly guy and passionate about his wines. I ended up joining the wine club after enjoying some of his great wines. I always thought Napa was the place to go for Cabs, but Michael definitely change my mind! Château Margene makes some really nice Cab blends. A real gem in the Paso Area.

Mike and Margene Mooney have the absolutely best wines in Paso Robles/​Creston area. Everytime we come to the area to taste wines, we plan on stopping. Mike has created some fantastic cabs, red blends and pinot noirs… They were great 3 years ago and they just get better! We were lucky to buy a couple of ’07 cabs previously (mike generously sold them from his collection!) and they were the hit of our Christmas party; plus we now have neighbors that have gone to visit as well! One of the hidden gems of this place as well is that they have a cottage on property to rent (and they now own the property next door, so there’s a larger ranch house to stay at as well). Very quaint and well-decorated…a pleasure to stay at! Walk the grounds after hours-​so peaceful and beautiful! Yes, it’s not close to the normal Paso Robles Wine tour area (it is on the Creston Wine Trail), but well worth the effort to visit!

Great wine but a not too friendly wine club policy for out of state shipping. I have to carry their wine back in my luggage. I keep going back because their Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the best in the area.

Definitely the most friendliest winery I’ve been to in Paso Robles. The owner is incredible. He takes the time to get to know the customers and you can tell that he is extremely passionate about what he does! Two of the stand-​outs for me are his Pinot Noir and Cab Sauv. The prices are reasonable and the wines are delicious. The tasting room is small but quaint and beautifully designed. They’re located in the back roads, known as Creston. I would highly recommend this winery!

The wines may win a lot of awards, but it’s the amazing warm welcome that wins me over. Love the gorgeously complex structure and layered flavors in the Pinots and the Cabernet Sauvignon

Went to a wedding here and it was absolutely beautiful. The wines at cocktail hour were really good, and fun to experience them in the tasting room. The setting and sunset were really memorable.

Hands down the best wines I have ever tasted. You may think it is expensive, and it’s not inexpensive, but you can easily spend that much or more on lesser Napa wines. I cannot remember the name of it, but their crafted chardonnay was the most crisp, clean, delicate, drinkable chardonnay my girlfriend and I ever tasted.
There was one BIG problem with CM; they were the first winery we visited in Paso, on our tasting tour, and their wines set such a high bar for us, it was kind of downhill for us from there. Don’t misunderstand that though, there were other very very good wines from other vineyards, but Mooney obviously has a passion, and a knack for the craft of winemaking.
We had Mike Mooney to ourselves for at least an hour, for the duration of our tasting experience here, and it was an amazing experience for us.
We did not join their wine club, nor did we buy a wine here, but we wish we had.
I guarantee the next time we’re in Paso Robles, we will visit Château Margene once again, and at the very least, take home a bottle of wine or two.
Come here, but I suggest making this your last stop of your wine tasting trip, because you’ll want to end it with the best!

This is probably my favorite winery in Paso. They have good cabs here! The Sparking Pinot «Blanc de Noirs» was a very good sparkling wine. Very refreshing. I probably should have bought one. The 2013 Grenache Blanc very refreshing although quite sweet. It had a strong green apple taste almost like a cider. The 2011 Meritage we liked. It had a bell pepper taste. The 2010 gsm was too fruit forward for me. The 2006 Cab (with some cab franc and merlot) smelled nice although not a giant nose. It was a very nice full body dry red. The 2009 Cab (88 Cab, 12 Merlot) smelled of more fruit than the above. ALso tasted a little more fruit forward but still tasted really nice –more medium dry. The 09 rounded out a bit better than the 06. Both spent about 28 months in the barrel. The 2012 Cask 4 (100 cab) spent 18 months in the barrel in New French Oak. It was only bottled in March 14′. It tasted surprisingly nice compared to the smell. It can certainly use more time in the bottle. I am sure it will be great in a few years.
Cate who was serving us was great. She was very pleasant and informative about the wines. We really liked her!

Love the wine and the people

Love the Bordeaux style wine, bought a magnum of Cabernet! Patio, shared room with Roxy port. We got great service, even outside on the patio.

A bit more expensive than other wineries with a $ 12 tasting fee, however the wine was good and the tasting included bread and walnut oil to dip it in as well as some delicous candied/​chocolate-​covered walnuts! All the wines were reds which was fine by me :)

I just spent a weekend in Paso with girlfriends and we ended up at this winery after another winery suggested we make a stop there. We were just about done tasting but decided to go ahead and do just one more. I’m so glad we did. The grounds are beautiful and they have a lovely patio with chairs and sofas and since we were the only ones there at the time, we lounged outside and Michael Mooney, the owner, brought the tastings out to us. He spent time chatting with us, telling us about his family and the history of the winery. He was so nice and passionate and we really enjoyed his company while also enjoying his wines! I’m a white wine fan drinker but the girls were raving about how great their big reds were.
In a moment of irresponsibility (perhaps I was too relaxed from the wine and the lovely surroundings?), I left my camera there and didn’t realize I had done it until after I made my way back to SF. I called the winery and the owner had my camera and was nice enough to ship it back to me immediately. I was so grateful!
I would absolutely recommend this place to wine lovers who also have an appreciation for wonderful family-​run businesses.

Just got back from Paso… and went to Ch. Margene. We have been to their tasting room previously, but they NOW HAVE ONE RIGHT OFF THE 46 West… on Vineyard Road! Spent over an hour with John Mooney — and their cabernets (especially their two elite ones) will match up with the best out of Napa. Pricey… depends on what you call pricey. Yes… they are… but for a Napa cab of the same quality. you’ll pay @X or more. And… they sure don’t have the Napa attitude! We have now had the opportunity to spend quality time with both Mike (father) and John (son)…and they are wonderful.knowledgeable.passionate — -and produce killer cabernet.

While we were in Paso with my folks, we enjoyed a bottle of their cab at dinner at Artisan and my dad loved it enough that he insisted upon us stopping by the winery the next day. I wasn’t quite as enthused, but was pleasantly surprised.
Let me warn you, you have to go out in search of this winery and there aren’t a whole lot of others nearby (although there was one that we passed with Italian flags out front that looked like we ought to try).
The winery itself is fairly new (I think they said that they started their wine making in 1997 and had opened the tasting room in 2006). It’s a pretty nice facility and is set up well with a good amount of parking, lots of counter space, and several different outdoor seating areas for enjoying a picnic or glass of wine.
The wine was mostly bordeaux-​inspired, although the two sons have started making wine and are making Rhone blends. My dad loved the Bordeaux styles quite a bit, while my fiancé and I weren’t quite as impressed with them (probably a result of the Merlot blending). The Rhone blends that the sons are making appealed to my palate much more and I highly recommend them. All of the wines are pretty hot (high alcohol content) which I enjoy and is hard to get away from in Paso.
The wine was expensive, which is why I was dancing back and forth between a three and four star rating. I just don’t think that they are making wine that is worth the $ 35 to $ 80 that they are charging (and I’ve paid that much and more for great wine before, so it’s not that I’m being cheap).
The other fun thing about this winery was the drive that we took back down HWY 229 to get to Santa Margarita… not that Château Margene had anything to do with it… but San Luis Obispo County does a great job maintaining their (really fun) winding country roads!