Castoro Cellars

Location & Contact:

1315 North Bethel Road
Templeton, CA 93465
805-238-0725
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Description:

The husband and wife team of Niels and Bimmer Udsen established Castoro Cellars with the goal of producing world-class wines from Paso Robles-appellation grapes. Each vintage presents a new challenge and Niels is more than willing to constantly and creatively experiment. This on-going research is only one of the things that ensures they meet their goal.

Niels' long-time nickname
"Beaver," evolved further when he was working in Italy and his friends soon took to calling him "Il Castoro," which is beaver in Italian. The name and the motto stuck. Castoro Cellars' "dam fine wines" sport a picture of a beaver on each label.

Castoro is now a winemaking team effort. The team includes Niels, his mentor Tom Myers, and Mikel Olsten. Together they discuss and decide how they want to handle each variety.

In the span of two dozen years, Niels and Bimmer have gone from making a few barrels of wine for family and friends in a rented corner of someone else's winery to developing a custom-crush operation and a 60,000-case operation for Castoro Cellars. Most recently, the Udsens purchased two local vineyards, one aptly named Hog Heaven after the wild hogs that inhabit the area. The second vineyard, "Blind Faith," got its name when the opportunity to buy the vineyard arose. Niels wife Berit, or "Bimmer," was in Denmark at the time. Niels called her and together they acted quickly on blind faith.

Castoro Cellars currently buys approximately 50 percent of their fruit from a number of local vineyards. "Buying grapes from over 40 different vineyards has given me great flexibility in producing a consistently good product each year," says Niels. However, "with more and more vineyard owners in Paso Robles establishing their own wineries, theres a lot less fruit to go around." As a result, the Udsens have embarked on their own vineyard development program. Hog Heaven and Blind Faith are just the start of more to come.

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