Christina

TIME VISITED: 03/31/2017, 1:00:00 PM

His dad is actually a pretty big wine staple in Paso, Norm Benson of Dark Star Cellars. Brian worked at his dad’s winery learning the ins and outs of the wine business and became the fulltime assistant winemaker there in 2000. Shortly thereafter, he decided to try it on his own and actually made some of his first vintages right there at his dad’s winery. But he soon outgrew that space and moved his operation over to Denner Vineyards. Since then, he has completely become self-sufficient with his own full winemaking facility in Tin City. We got to check this out first hand, and he has quite the set-up!!  His production is about 1500 cases, and like Jacob, Brian sources all of his fruit.

After chatting with Jacob Toft for a bit, we walked a whole 12 feet to our next wine tasting room, Brian Benson Cellars. Whew, were we tired... and thirsty! Thank God they had wine, or maybe we

The wines were definitely impressive, which wasn’t surprising after hearing his background. What was a little surprising was his accolade for painting and drawing. He makes all of his own labels, which are a little on the dark side, but very imaginative! The tasting room was crazy cool with all kinds of paintings (done by Brian), and car stuff (he's big into hot rods)! Then, there is this gigantic window that opens to the back, which brings in so much natural light and a cool breeze.

I believe they are planning on building a back porch out there…hmm, maybe we’ll need to go back and check on that? Wouldn’t want to give our readers incorrect information. #MoreResearch

Well Brian wasn't there to thank,

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but his lovely and charismatic wife, Christina, was, and she gave

should thank Brian?!

What we tasted:


2013 Kandy Red (Grenache Zin)
2013 Grenache/Syrah
2013 Rapid Roy (Primitivo, Syrah, and Mourvèdre)
2013 Neapolitan Pussycat (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre)
2013 Syrah (100%)

What we bought:


2013 Grenache/Syrah   #flightfavorite
2013 Rapid Roy

Brian Benson Cellars-       (NOTE: this is an excerpt from our Tin City Spotlight)

Brian

us the history of Brian and his start in wine.