Derby Wine Estates

Faves:
2011 fifteen 10
2014 Rose
2011 Implico
Great line up of wines to try for wine tasting.
Atmosphere & ambiance: A
Very clean & nice tasting room.
Service: A
Very friendly & nice.
Overall, will definitely try again.

The Riverside address is right, yet when we were there, the Unilocal!map still flagged the Hwy 46 East location.
We were there by ourselves on a quiet weekday morning and had a good tasting experience. Nice wines, $ 10 tasting, we bought a bottle of rose and a bottle of port. We like their wines (and have had them before), just not enough to carry any with us. I’d feel quite comfortable ordering any of their wines off a list at a restaurant or picking one up at Bev Mo to take out.

Just did the new Friday night concerts at Derby. Wow. Great music. Delicious wine and ho, daddy, Derby Smokehouse Santa Maria style tri-​tip. Those camp beans were smokey and rich, sticking a perfect balance of yumminess.
A very fun way to enjoy a Paso Robles Summer night.

I have an announcement! I am now a proud member of the Derby Wine Estates wine club! I went here for a more selfish reason but as I tried their wines I loved every single one that was poured! The whites, rose, and red blends are all fantastic! I also love the theory of this vineyard. It’s actually three separate vineyards growing in different areas with different micro-​climates. I loved hearing about which wines came from where and looking at the maps and pictures where the grapes were grown. They sell most of their grapes to other wine producers in the area, meaning their wine is produced with top 5% best grapes from their estates and they don’t produce a lot of it. It’s exclusively sold at their tasting room or online. The tasting room is a little small but the patio is spacious and very modern. Are you sold yet? Let me add one more thing – the building they are in. They bought and revamped the Paso Almond Growers Association building, right off of the 101 in Paso. It’s a light pink/​coral building with a tower-​very hard to miss. They have restored this building beautifully and I’ve heard you can go up into the tower to taste too. I can’t wait to do that next time! I just overall love the fact when old buildings are made useful again. One last thing, on Saturdays they have little classes you can attend to taste and get some education about the wine. For example, they will serve you a blend and then have you taste each component individually. Or they will serve you they same wines but from 2010, 2011, 2012 to compare. I think this education is fantastic! It is for these reasons I joined their club. Head on over and give this place a taste! I think you’ll enjoy it.

Jennifer was our hostess for wine tasting and she did a great job. Very friendly and informative. I really enjoyed the Rose’.

I am really happy that Derby got a real home instead of the trailer they previously had on Hwy 46. The tasting room was super slick, modern and very nice. We got there early on a Friday so we were the only ones there and had the tasting of their flight of wines.
$ 10 tasting fee and waived with purchase. We picked up the 2011 Fifteen 10 which is a blend of five different wines and was excellent chilled. The price point is between $ 24 to $ 32 per bottle so not bad and the wines were all very good.

Jennifer at derby is the best part of this place. It is 10 dollars to taste. Their wines are decent at best. I had about 2 fruit flies make it into my wine, one landed in my boyfriends glass. There were fruit flies all over, I had my hand over my glass majority of the time so they couldn’t get in. We were showed the members VIP lounge upstairs. The view is the freeway and a lumber yard. Not my ideal place to become a member. I typically become a wine club member not only for the great wines but for the views and the perks they have to offer. They did a great job on this building but I was very disappointed in it overall. My boyfriend and I purchased a bottle because of how great Jennifer was but we won’t be coming back despite the fact we only live a few blocks away.

The staff at Derby feels like family. The Almond room has a beautiful 360 view of Paso Robles. Truly enjoy the sparkling Brut and the Implico. Generous tastings and very enjoyable.

What a great place. Great people and thanks for a GREAT time! FUN, FUN, FUN!

Rude! Rude! Rude! We came based on a wine club member raving about their Syrah. We were told we are not members so we can not taste the Syrah. Why would I join if I can not taste the wine to see if I like it. Everywhere I have tasted in Paso has been an enjoyable experience until Derby. Plus the building is huge and they have one small bar for tasting.

Here for the opening of the new Derby Wine Estates new tasting room. Fabulous new location in the old Almond Growers building. Congrats to the Derby’s!

’10 Pinot is one of my favorites, easy to get too, and OMG! Victoria knows her Vino and never runs out of words to help describe the wines. It’s worth the stop!!!

I will make this short and sweet. I LOVE THIS PLACE!!! Great wine, great service (Seth is the best!). We are now wine club members and I’m NEVER disappointed!

We were excited to try out a newer and smaller winery. The wines were just ok. The experience may have been better if it weren’t for the high pitched, condescending, very rude hostess. It’s customer service, don’t be rude, especially to someone who is intelligent enough to read through your sarcasm and usually buys 6 – 12 bottles per winery. Done.

Victoria’s secret? You know what it is? First of all, before I get to the secret, Victoria is the hostess. And she can talk football (San Diego Chargers, San Francisco 49ers); movies (her faves are The Godfather, Pulp Fiction, Clint Eastwood pics); and wine. This is where it gets down to the nitty gritty: If you ask her why «Derby» Pinot Noirs are better here than elsewhere you are going to get a very thorough, convincing answer. When Pinot Noirs became the «It» wine in the early part of the last decade, all wineries began growing Pinot grapes… but at the wrong temperatures. Their vineyard is properly located off the sea breeze, eliciting perfect temps. Buy a Pinot and buy a Sparkling Rose Champagne. The $ 10 tasting fee will be waived if you buy. Altogether, this is one of the more essential Paso Roblas wineries.

Derby Wines was truly the surprise of the afternoon in Paso Robles! Got a recommendation to come here from Mitchella, another small production winery and it was the highlight of our 101 detour. The outside looks like a trailer, but the wines sure do impress! We ended up leaving with 3 bottles, the pinot gris, pinot noir, and the sparkling rose. Victoria was a wonderful hostess who thoroughly explained why their wines are so unique. Definitely looking forward to a return this wonderful little boutique tasting room! If you’re looking for a quick detour, definitely try Derby, Mitchella and Penman Springs Vineyards. You won’t be leaving empty-​handed!

I went with three girlfriends for a weekend trip down to Paso Robles from SF. We asked all of our friends and had assembled a list– Turley, Denner, Justin… the usual suspects. Once down there I pulled some Paso Robles winery marketing materials from a stand in our hotel and noticed Derby was based there as well. I had tried their sparkling Rose and LOVED it. I was hesitant to drag all my friends there as it was not on our «recommended» list and I wasn’t sure if the rest of the wines would measure up, but I decided to suggest it nonetheless and I’m SO glad I did.
The wines here were amazing and at the end of the day everyone in my group agreed that the Derby wines had won Best in Class hands down! Their Pinot has elegant structure, their white Rhone is heavier bodied but has a great amount of acidity, and their sparking Rose was as good as I remembered! If I can pare down any of my Napa/​Sonoma wine memberships I will be signing up for Derby, and if you prefer well crafted wines that express terroir and personality then I highly recommend you give them a try too!

So we went in to taste their sparkling wine, which is amazing, and left wine club members. We had been on a mission to find a dry sparkling wine from the area to serve at our wedding at a local winery. We had been very disappointed until we came here, everywhere else has rather sweet sparkling wine. Theirs is a blush made from pinot noir and is up there with the best I’ve had. It is $ 54/​bottle too.
We tasted their other wines and they were all very good and complex. We have family in the area and come here for wine tasting several times a year, we were SHOCKED that we hadn’t heard of a place that was so good. We can’t wait to pick up our first shipment. We left with 3 bottles of wine…
The one down side to this winery would be the facilities. It is right off the Highway and has a pretty law out front with a garden they encourage you to pick vegetables from. Their building is clean and nice enough but is some kind of modular home/​office type thing. It just isn’t as welcoming as some of the other wineries in this immediate area like Bianchi for example. Their wine makes it worth the visit for sure!

What a great surprise. Very friendly staff & over the top knowledgeable.
Fair prices too!

What a cute little gem of discovery!
I first met/​discovered this winery at a local tasting in LA and totally enjoyed the wines. The girl who poured for me was super informative and explained that they owned three vineyards in the Paso Robles area (love love love) and that they also have a tasting room on one of the vineyard. Since my girls and I planned to visit Paso Robles for a «girls weekend» and I thought we should pay their tasting room a visit. Boy, what a treat!
I was not greeted in the tasting room with the same girl whom I met in LA but the one who poured for us was (I think her name was Hilary) also really down to earth and information. She said that the tasting room (the cutest little double-​wide) is set on their «east side» Paso Robles vineyard. However, they were tasting wines from all three of their vineyards in one location — perfect for a wino who hates to drive :)
We tasted some amazing Pinot’s from their vineyard in the San Simeon area (I think she said it was like a mile a way from the ocean or something close to that). Then we tasted some Rhone varieties wines (from their West Paso Vineyard) which is equally as amazing. I don’t know very much about the Rhone region but they have some really interesting variety that I am not familiar with like counoise. To end the tasting flight, we tasted red wine blends from the vineyard where the tasting room is situated. Wow.
Us girls don’t always agree on everything but we gave it 6 thumbs up (since it was only the three of us). I was sooooooooo tempted to join their wine club but promised my boyfriend that I would wait until we make the next trip to do that. I am already planning our trip!
Pros: Amazing wines, super down to earth and informed staff and waived tasting fee with wine purchase.
Cons: Wines harder to find outside of tasting room (stock up while your there!!!)