Quest 2016 Proprietary Red

Quest is a new wine that aims to express the increasingly recognized potential and excitement of Paso Robles. It is a Cabernet-based blend that showcases the luscious softness and depth produced in our mountainous, oak-studded, maritime-influenced home. Cabernet thrives in Paso’s semi-arid, rocky soils, and this wine is fruit-forward, with a toasty vanilla finish and grippy tannins. Quest has been aged in American oak barrels, yet displays an inherent softness. It reflects the region’s richly diverse terrain, where hidden pockets of exceptional vineyards account for its unique character.

Quest is not bound by history, tradition or norms of winemaking. It is a new wine that aims to express what can be produced in Paso Robles, our mountainous, oak-studded, maritime-influenced home. My father first brought us here in 1978, seeing the potential to grow red varietals in Paso’s varied landscape and soils. Since then, we’ve been exploring vineyard sites across the region, discovering the uniqueness of each one. This wine displays the lushness of Cabernet, the foundation of our blend. But just like Paso is made richer by the diversity of its land, so this wine is made equally distinct by its mix of grapes – a combination that is concentrated, soft, supple and expressive.

93 POINTS - "One of the impressive new releases is Austin Hope’s Quest 2016 Proprietary Red Wine from Paso Robles. With a dark purple hue, this stately wine features a signature blend of 57 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and smaller portions of Merlot, Petit Verdot and Petite Sirah. Once poured, the wine opens with deep, rich and enlightening scents of wild berries, licorice, clove, bay laurel, vanilla tobacco and cedar. On the palate, the brazen flavors of blackberry, boysenberry, cassis and dark cherry are enhanced with intriguing notes of black olive, dark chocolate, cinnamon, mint and roasted walnuts. Rich, powerful and mouth-filling. This is an extremely unique wine, which gets better and more rewarding as it opens up in the glass." - Chris Sawyer

Appearance: Dark Ruby/purple with a claret rim

Aroma: Vanilla, caramel, cassis, red fruit

Palate: Rich clean berry flavors with firm tannins finishes with a long toasty, French vanilla

The varietals in this Red Blend are harvested and fermented individually by vineyard lots and then barreled into American oak barrels. The lots were racked twice during barrel-aging, blended together and put into 65% New American oak barrels for an additional 3 months. Just prior to bottling the wine is filtered. The 2016 Paso Quest Red Wine was aged for a total of 21 months in oak, blended in the early Summer of 2018 and bottled in August of 2018.