Restaurateur Cris Cherry, along with his wife JoAnn, ran a popular restaurant in Templeton with the same name as their winery (they pronounce Villa Spanish-style, “vee-yah”), and after a few years of buying all the wines for the restaurant, JoAnn and Cris decided in 2001 to start making their own wine. In 2017 they shut down the restaurant to focus on their now very successful winery. Paso Robles was for many years a single AVA that encompassed an enormous swath of the central coast, with the average wine from the area being very ripe and alcoholic, but in 2014 the AVA was split into 11 sub-zones. The coolest and farthest West zones of Adelaida and Willow Creek (where this wine comes from) also have the advantages of being one of only two areas in California wine country (the other is Chalone/Gabilan Mountains) with Limestone soils. Night time temperatures plummet, sometimes by 50 degrees, and the resulting wines have a fresh acidity--indeed, they are always waiting for the acidity to drop, not for the sugar to rise, in order to pick. This blend of 70% Grenache, 20% Mourvedre and 10% Syrah is full bodied, yet fresh and, as one would expect from a restaurateur-turned-winemaker, it is an elegant companion for food.