The Grapevine: Eric Jensen of Paso's Booker Vineyard loves to tinker with his wines

Eric Jensen’s path to the wine business is a familiar one: Guy who loves wine and food makes some money in another line of work (in his case, festival and concert production in Southern California), sells his business and decides to plant a vineyard.

But Jensen, who owns Booker Vineyard in Paso Robles with his wife, Lisa, is more devoted — some might say fanatical —than many of the wine industry newcomers I’ve encountered. He’s constantly experimenting, both in his winery and his vineyard, where he produces low yields of intense fruit.

The Jensens moved to Paso Robles around 1999. They owned a piece of property, which they eventually sold. With the help of Justin Smith of Saxum, Eric Jensen found a hilly 100-acre parcel on the west side, along Anderson Road. The soils are calcareous shale, and Jensen liked the fact that it had a variety of exposures and elevations. He sold about 30 acres of it and started planting his 45-acre vineyard in 2000. The property was named Booker Vineyard for the philanthropic Booker brothers (Claude and Dick), who had owned and farmed hundreds of acres on the west side, including Jensen’s land.

The vineyard is planted mostly in Rhône reds, as well as some Rhône whites, tempranillo, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and petit verdot. With all the exposures in the vineyard, “we can plant some different varietals and get away with it,” Jensen says. “We had some real opportunities to try some different things.”

The vines are tightly spaced, but even at 2,100 vines per acre Jensen is lucky to get 2.5 tons of fruit per acre because it’s such a low-vigor site. More typical in recent years have been yields of under 2 tons. He farms meticulously; the vines are managed “plant to plant,” he says.

Jensen sells grapes to several wineries, including Saxum, Linne Calodo and Villa Creek, and keeps some for his own small brand. Cris Cherry of Villa Creek loves the fruit he gets from Booker Vineyard, but he acknowledges that it’s a tough place to farm. “I think what helps this site as well as hobbles it is that it is so extreme,” he says.

Jensen didn’t really intend to produce his own wine. “I thought I’d just be a farmer,” he says. But he spent some time working with Smith at Saxum and with Stephan Asseo at L’Aventure, and they encouraged him to make his own wine. Jensen released his first commercial wine in the 2005 vintage. Production cur-

rently is at about 1,500 cases a year; Jensen wants to sell less fruit and increase his production to 2,500 to 3,000 cases. It’s more profitable to sell wine than grapes, he says.

In the winery, Jensen is always trying different winemaking techniques — the latest is fermenting some of his wines in concrete — and unusual blends. “Everything is an experiment,” he says. If a barrel of wine isn’t up to snuff, he sells it off in bulk.

There’s no question that these are big wines. “This is Paso Robles,” Cherry says. “It gets warm. Wines get ripe.” Jensen concurs, saying that’s a challenge. “How do I keep it unique and keep acid, without making it clumsy and heavy?” he muses. But I think he’s done a good job: The wines are quite ripe, but they’re still remarkably fresh.

Much of the Booker wine is sold through a mailing list, but Jensen tries to keep some for sale in the winery’s tasting room. Several of the top wines — like Fracture, which is all syrah, and the Ripper, which is mostly grenache —are sold out, but I recently tasted a couple of Booker wines that should still be available. The 2006 Vertigo ($50), which is mostly syrah, is ripe and lively, with juicy blackberry and boysenberry, while the 2006

Alchemist ($40), a syrahcab blend, is a little plumper, with blackberry and black cherry flavors.

The Web site, www . bookerwines.com, has information about signing up to receive a small allocation of wine. Or visit the tasting room Friday-Sunday at 2640 Anderson Road in Paso Robles.