Paso Garagiste Presents $10,000 to Cal Poly Wine and Viticulture Program

This Saturday, January 28 at 7:00 p.m., Paso Garagiste will present a check for $10,000 to the Cal Poly Wine and Viticulture Program at a special garagiste appreciation event. The event, for participating festival winemakers, sponsors and volunteers, takes place at Hammersky Vineyards in Paso Robles.

Garagistes (gar-uh-zhē-stuh) is a term originally used in the Bordeaux region of France to denigrate renegade small-lot wine makers, sometimes working in their “garages” (anything considered not a chateau), who refused to follow the “rules,” and is now a full-fledged movement responsible for making some of the best wine in the world.

The donation, from funds raised at November’s first annual Paso Garagiste Festival, will go towards furthering Cal Poly Wine and Viticulture Program’s mission of preparing students for jobs in the California and worldwide wine industry. The date and venue for the 2012 Festival will also be announced on Saturday.

Attendees include Paso Garagiste founders Stewart McLennan and Doug Minnick, Cal Poly Interim Assistant Dean, Adam Jarman, students in the Cal Poly Wine and Viticultural program, garagiste winemakers

Background

The Garagiste Festival is dedicated to featuring high-quality, cutting-edge, small production wineries that produce fewer than 1,200 cases a year. The sold out 2011 premiere festival brought together many of California’s best and most innovative winemakers with over 700 passionate wine consumers and members of the trade, raising the profiles of many of the winemakers nationally for the first time.