Tin City in Paso Robles lets you visit several tasting rooms without the winery tour

An industrial neighborhood near the 101 about four miles south of downtown Paso Robles has transformed into Tin City, a collective of wine companies and craft beer makers. (Photo Credit Tin City, DBA)

By Paul Hodgins | pauldavidhodgins@gmail.com

PUBLISHED: May 26, 2022 at 4:26 p.m. | UPDATED: May 26, 2022 at 4:31 p.m.

Ah, wine country! The long drives on bumpy backroads, the pricey tasting rooms that look like Versailles, the smelly winery dog lounging at your feet. Wouldn’t it be nice to just park yourself in an interesting urban neighborhood, walk around and sample unusual wines in hip, casual surroundings, maybe shop for a picnic, and enjoy a really good meal – or even a tasty craft beer – between tasting room visits?

Welcome to Tin City, emblematic of a trend that’s transforming California’s wine world and drawing in people who wouldn’t be caught dead on a “wine trail.”

Neighborhoods like Tin City, near Paso Robles on the Central Coast, were born out of economic necessity. In many California wine regions, success has come at a cost – literally. Smaller winemakers looking to open production facilities and tasting rooms have found themselves priced out of rapidly appreciating real estate markets. Rents in downtown neighborhoods, where off-the-beaten-track wineries can showcase their products to a bigger audience, are often beyond their reach.

And over the last decade, the tastes and habits of wine consumers have changed as well. Younger wine lovers are more interested in an intimate and casual experience that involves meeting the winemaker, seeing how wine is produced as they taste it, and experiencing wine as part of a larger sensory, aesthetic and gustatory experience.

The result has been the emergence of consumer-friendly wine neighborhoods in offbeat urban locations where the costs of building and operating a wine-making facility are more affordable, and where wineries are only one part of the scene. You can find them in Santa Barbara, Lompoc and – perhaps most successfully – in Paso Robles, a town in the middle of one of California’s fastest-growing wine regions, where Tin City has set an impressive standard for the concept.

An industrial neighborhood near the 101 about four miles south of downtown Paso – home for many years to pool builders, air conditioning installers, auto repair shops and other unglamorous businesses – has transformed itself over the last decade into a haven for artisanal winemakers, distillers, brewers and several upscale businesses, including a gourmet grocery store and a restaurant with a Michelin star.

Young winemakers looking for a bargain-priced facility were the first to discover the neighborhood. In 2011, Andrew Jones envisioned it as the perfect spot for his new passion project, a winery he would call Field Recordings. “I was looking for something affordable and quiet. It was a good place for an upstart winery,” Jones said in a 2021 interview with Pix.

A short while later, husband-and-wife team Brian and Stephanie Terrizzi signed a lease on a nearby building for their offbeat winery, Giornata. It was a smart move that gave the young winemakers a unique platform for their unusual wines and turned them into trendsetters as Tin City took off.

The metamorphosis continued in 2013 when BarrelHouse Brewing Co. opened the doors to its craft brewery and rambling gardens, where bands frequently perform on an impromptu stage – an old flatbed truck. You’ll also find other very non-brewery touches, such as a fantastical artificial waterfall.

BarrelHouse and the small band of upstart winemakers established a beachhead, bringing thirsty crowds to the area for the first time, and it inspired a growing influx of artisanal winemakers and other related businesses. Many of them rented rustic spaces from Mike English, owner of a pool company who had property in the area. New buildings popped up, imitating the rustic style of the original structures. Locals began calling the area Tin City, and the name stuck.

By the middle of the decade a second, larger wave of new tenants began arriving. “We always thought this was a really solid up-and-coming area, based on the success of (similar neighborhoods in) Lompoc and Santa Barbara. It definitely had legs,” says Jeff Strekas, director of operations and winegrowing for ONX Wines. Its Tin City facility opened in 2015.

Strekas likes the entrepreneurial spirit of Tin City and the mutual generosity of the winemakers that have taken up residence. “There are a lot of synergies with wineries here. There’s always a forklift right next door if you need one. We have the ability to help each other and share equipment.” That neighborliness also leads to exchanges of ideas as well – the upside of any shared workspace where like-minded and ambitious people gather.

Some might grumble that Tin City has become too successful. Parking spaces can be hard to come by on the streets and lots that surround its 33 storefronts. Mostly you’ll find respected “garagiste” winemakers in residence here, but there’s a healthy mix of other businesses as well: Tin City Cider Co., the super-popular restaurant Six Test Kitchen (in September 2021, it became the first restaurant in San Luis Obispo County to earn a Michelin star), Negranti Creamery, McPhee’s Canteen, and Etto Pastificio, a gourmet Italian grocery run by Brian and Stephanie Terrizzi.

The feel of Tin City is industrial chic with a touch of farmhouse. It’s cozy and casual. Metal siding is the dominant building material, but its hard-edged look is softened by gentle pastel colors and the wineries’ whimsical and imaginative logos. Some winemakers have indulged in flights of fancy in their designs. The tasting room at Field Recordings, for example, has been meticulously constructed to look like a high school gymnasium, down to realistic details such as team pennants and lockers lining the walls.

Murals and other works of art dot the Tin City landscape. Even the nearby railroad tracks seem to have been included in the design aesthetic. On some patios, you can watch passenger and freight trains whiz by just a few feet away.

One of Tin City’s biggest attractions is convenience. You can hit several tasting rooms, sip a craft beer for contrast, eat a great meal, and even do a little grocery shopping without getting into your car.

“This is an area with lots of different things to do,” Strekas says. “I think we do see a more diverse crowd here than at the winery, and it gives us the chance to introduce ourselves to people who otherwise might not be into wine culture.”

But perhaps Tin City’s best asset is that it’s a much-needed antidote to the traditional wine country experience. It makes a sometimes rarified world more approachable, less clubby, and part of a larger and more diverse landscape. And you won’t run across a single winery dog, overpriced gift shop or pushy wine club salesperson.

Tin City directory

Tin City Cider Co.

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