As of April 2002, a familiar Paso Robles wine label has a place on the map—literally. After nearly a decade of learning the art of winegrowing and winemaking, Alex and Monica Villicana opened their Westside Paso Robles tasting room, providing a home for their handcrafted, award-winning wines and a destination for fans of the label.

The Villicana label owes its existence to an unsuccessful culinary school endeavor. After college, Alex decided to pursue his interest in food and wine by enrolling in a culinary program. When the school failed to open, he shifted his focus to winemaking, taking a job working the harvest at a local Paso Robles winery in 1990 and enrolling in viticulture and enology classes at U.C. Davis.

In 1992, Alex was offered the chance to hand-harvest some Gamay grapes leftover from a mechanical harvest at a local vineyard. He eagerly accepted and made his first wine, catching the winemaking bug. In 1993, he was in the right place at the right time when he was offered three tons of Cabernet Sauvignon fruit from the renowned Tchelistcheff vineyard in the Adelaida hills. Fortunate enough to secure fruit from that vineyard again in 1994, Alex became captivated by Paso Robles—not only for its high-quality fruit but also for the cooperative spirit and energy of the local winemakers.

Big Basin Vineyards was founded in 1998 on an historic site in the Santa Cruz Mountains next to Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The old ranch property was first settled in the late 1800s. Wine grape cultivation had been started by French immigrants by the early 1900s and continued until 1965 when the property was sold by Justin Lacau, who had named the property "Frenchy's Ranch", to a timber company. By the 1990s, all that remained of the vineyards were redwood stakes and scattered vines hidden by brush and poison oak bushes. The mission has been to restore this historic vineyard site using modern, organic viticultural methods. The winery building was completed in December 2003 on the same site as the original 1890s house/winery structure which burned down in the 1970s. It is a 'Monitor'-style barn with a timber frame construction built using redwood selectively harvested from the estate.

Tensley Wines is a family owned and operated winery focusing on vineyard designated Syrah within Santa Barbara County. Established in 1998, the first release of Tensley totaled just 100 cases. In 2006, our production reached 3,300 cases and included seven single-vineyard Syrahs, the most in Santa Barbara County.