Come tour our vineyard!
Owner/Winemaker/Vineyard Manager Larry Stanton will personally conduct you and your group (up to 6 person maximum) in a first-hand experience where you will:

• Learn to identify wine varietals, wildflowers, geography, soil type, other flora and fauna and a variety of estate birds.
• Learn about terracing, pruning, thinning, irrigation, erosion control and grape protection
• See the colorful, deeply transformational vineyard at HARVEST (Oct./Nov)*
• Enjoy the astounding beauty of the Paso Robles/Templeton Gap wine region, with rolling oak-studded hills and winding roads.

Tours are $20/person and by appointment only. Tour fee is waived with wine purchase. Call 805.226.8448 or email pasodocwine@yahoo.com. *Tours at harvest are limited and must be booked well in advance.

Going Green

At Cerro Prieto Vineyard & Cellars, we are moving ever closer to truly “sustainable agriculture,” or an all organic vineyard. Following are the green changes we have made and continue to work toward:

Herbicides: Proven to be causative in cancer, herbicides are one of the two most important “green” improvements” we have targeted. Each year we use less and less herbicides, with more than 90% of our vineyard weed control done without the chemicals. Weeds on every hillside, every row, that can be controlled with hoes, shovels, machetes or weed eaters, will be eliminated naturally. A bonus has been considerably less erosion. We merely chop weeds rather than spraying (poisoning) 18 inches around each vine. A good case can be now be made that no chemical usage equates to better tasting wines, allowing the vineyard to demonstrate its true unadulterated terroir.

Grapevine pruning disposal: Formerly we gathered grapevine prunings and burned them. It is no secret that the Paso Robles air is fouled each year in spring by burning of the massive prunings of pitted fruit trees (cherries, nectarines, peaches, etc). With an easterly wind, smoke from the San Joaquin Valley pollutes Paso Robles clean air, and we are 120 miles away. Years ago we made the switch from burning to mulching prunings with a flail mower. This not only eliminates nasty polluting smoke, but also serves to deposit coarsely chopped mulch in each row. Now our prunings serve as an erosion prevention mechanism.

Erosion control: Steeply sloped hillsides and mountainside vineyards require cover crops to retain topsoil. Barley, perennial grasses, vetch, filaree - all fulfill the same purpose - keep the topsoil in the vineyard. Cover crops are expensive, but once established generally re-seed themselves each year. Additionally, we put out hay on our steepest slopes to prevent seeds from being washed away before sprouting in the early heavy rains.

Fertilizers: Clovers or legumes are nitrogen fixers and can be used to actually put nitrogen(N) back into the soil. Vines with clover around them tend to have higher nitrogen content in their leaves, hence lessening the need for fertilizers. Our valley vineyard, characterized by rich river bottom soil, seems to do well with organic fertilizers. We have decreased commercial fertilizer use by 1/3 of previous totals.

Pesticides/fungicides: Typically, we would use these sprays four times per year, but recently have been able to cut applications by 50 to 75%. The low yield philosophy of decreasing number of spur positions/vine, along with super selective pruning, allows maximal airflow and sunlight around each and every individual cluster. The absence of conditions fomenting mildew/mold growth (less grape clusters) leads to less mold/mildew.

Varmint control: Inside of using poisons, we only employ MacAbee traps, four to five dozen at a time, and have virtually eliminated poison from our soil. Buried traps are labor intensive, but our specially trained hunting dogs rapidly isolate new gopher workings, and many times dig the holes for us.

Additionally, we are now in our sixth year of installing Barn Owl nesting boxes with perches. Under each active Barn Owl box, there is a veritable graveyard mound of gopher bones. Barn Owls patrol the vineyard at night and Kestrels, Peregrines, Red-tailed, Red-shouldered hawks, patrol the vineyard during the day. 

Bird damage protection: Zon guns, or automatic compressed air cannons, are terrible noise polluters. We have installed computer driven bird distress and hawk calls that have successfully protect most of our vineyard’s ripening grapes. Rather than use the Zon guns, we have netted the part of the vineyard where bird distress calls fail. Additionally, we fly hawk silhouette kites on 10 foot poles every two acres of the vineyard. Finally, we have placed small, four-foot windmills on hilltops. The mills are natural grackle and blackbird flyways to assist in scaring off grape eating birds.

Cerro Prieto Vineyard & Cellars is only three green measures away from being completely organic. Although greatly reduced, we still have a 10-15% of former herbicide use to eliminate. Pesticide /fungicide usage is down to 25% of former use, and we are hoping to eliminate that with stylet and mineral oil trials this year. Lastly, we have established 1/3 of our vineyard (the cooler valley vineyard) with organic fertilizers. The remaining 2/3 vineyard of steep limestone hillsides still requires commercial fertilizer, needed in solid rock areas. This will be our hardest green problem to solve.

Cerro Prieto will continue to use eco-friendly farming methods that produce wholesome, healthful grapes and wines, while protecting and continuing to improve the environment for future generations.

"Taking the Cerro Prieto vineyard tour with Larry was so fun and informative. My husband and I learned so much about what it takes to make a really superb glass of wine. It does start in the vineyard and Larry’s knowledge of the vines and how to care for them in a sustainable way is amazing. I will never drink wine the same way knowing of all the hard work that is poured into a bottle. His Paso Bordo and Merlot are exceptional."

Kim B. – Los Angeles, CA.