Vina Robles ‘The Arborist’ Estate Red Blend 2018

#19 Wine Enthusiast Top 100 Wines of 2020

Vina Robles was founded in the early 1990’s by Swiss businessman, Hans Nef for the purpose of bringing together the Old World wine vision which he grew up idolizing with the exciting possibilities that New World wine brings.

In building his winery, Vina Robles, he spared no expense at all, amassing six estate vineyards throughout Paso Robles that serve as the foundation for the red-wine dominant winery. It’s not just grape growing that is part of the winery’s vision. A big part of what they do is farming, growing and planting trees. It’s the inspiration behind the name of the winery’s Red Blend that has been causing such a big stir of late, the Arborist Estate Red blend.

The super expressive, lively, dark-fruited Syrah dominant blend provides absurd value each year considering the quality in the bottle. But in a wonderful 2018 vintage for really all of California and in Paso in particular, the Arborist borders on exceptional.

Wine Enthusiast gave the wine a 94pt Editors’ Choice designation and called it “a screamingly good deal” before ultimately slotting it in as the #19 best wine of the year in their annual Top 100 list. With only 20 cases left in the country, I took them all– but am only texting them to a small group of people. You’re not going to want to miss this one!