Grey Wolf Cellars has always been a favorite of my husband and mine.  It is a charming little farm house right off of Highway 46 West that has been converted into a tasting room.  They used to have a rope swing out front and baked homemade bread with fantastic dipping oil, and made it a very homey relaxing experience to taste wine there.  It definitely has the smaller family-owned and operated feel rather than the more corporate feel of their neighbors, Castoro Cellars and Eagle Castle, which are much bigger and grander.   In my opinion their greatest specialty is their red blends. It is always fun to see what new blend will be released each year, and I am never disappointed.  Their big seller is the Lone Wolf, which is an inexpensive red blend table wine that seems to sell out each year.  It is a definite wine staple.  We have been members of their wine club for a few years now, and every time we stop by to taste or pick up our shipment we always leave happy.  Our last visit we braved taking our kids and what a relief to have them hand us some coloring pages of wolfs and some coloring crayons for the kids.  Plus they gave them crackers and chocolate raspberry bread, Yum!  The kids also enjoyed the 2 dogs that roamed around and the cat sleeping under the chair.  Sometimes it is fun to act like a tourist in your own hometown so, Anthony and I took silly pics of each other and really enjoyed ourselves.

We did notice that the winery has been making some changes lately, most notably the label.  A ferocious looking wolf is the new face to their bottles of wine.  A good marketing move or a mistake?  Branding is a very important part of winemaking and making drastic changes to a label is a huge gamble.  In my opinion, the new label doesn’t match the homey family feel of the winery.  What do you think?  I prefer the look of their Barton Family label, which demonstrates their pride in their family, their wine-making abilities and distinguishes their more special reserve bottles of Grey Wolf wine.

Grey Wolf seems to continuously produce excellent depth and flavor in their wines.  Each bottle stands out from the other, and I encourage you to go there to taste and see for yourself.  In our last visit to the tasting room, we were poured their white wine for the first time.  This winery is definitely one to keep an eye on because the winemaker has some incredible talent and doesn’t seem afraid to branch out and try some new things.  The true Paso wine spirit!