Dave Carpenter spent some twenty-five years moving money for a mutual fund company in Los Angeles, knowing almost nothing about the Central Coast. Then a wedding weekend in Paso Robles, and a spontaneous Sunday tour through the wine country, planted an idea that took nearly twenty years to grow. He enrolled in the two-year UC Davis winemaking certificate and worked harvests under serious names, Anthony Yount at Denner, Stephan Asseo at L’Aventure, Guillaume Fabre at Clos Solene. He and his wife Antonia bought their Peachy Canyon land in 2012, planted in 2019, and bottled their first wines.

A second chapter, twenty years in the making

Dave and Antonia call this their second chapter, and they mean it. They had been dreaming of it, in their own words, for nearly twenty years before the wines arrived. Dave left finance to learn the craft properly, training under some of the most admired winemakers on the Paso west side, and his internships read like a tour of the district’s benchmark cellars.

Antonia, one of seven children from Boulder City, Nevada, grew up working in her parents’ boutique of Mexican and Native American art, jewelry and leather goods. Her Mexican heritage colors the brand’s style, and she runs the tasting room while raising the couple’s twin boys. The two are partners in wine in the literal sense, one in the cellar and the vineyard, one welcoming the guests.

The name Ciento joins cielo and viento, heaven and wind, and also means one hundred, a quiet nod to the perfect score.

Fourteen acres in Peachy Canyon

The estate is fourteen acres on Peachy Canyon Road, on the west side of Paso Robles within the Adelaida District. What drew the Carpenters was the soil, the exceptional calcareous limestone that defines this corner of the appellation and gives the wines their structure and savory edge.

This is high, cool country by Paso standards. Warm afternoons ripen the fruit while Pacific air through the Templeton Gap drives nights cold, and that big day-to-night swing preserves the acidity and aromatics that make balanced wine possible. On shallow limestone, vines struggle in the productive sense, yielding small, concentrated berries. For a young vineyard planted in 2019, that hard ground is an asset, not an obstacle.

A spice rack of Rhone and Bordeaux

Dave thinks of his eight planted varieties as a spice rack for blending. The Rhone side runs to Viognier, Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre and Cinsault, the Bordeaux side to Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, all of it aimed at red blends in the old-world spirit of the Rhone and Bordeaux he loves.

The first releases came from the 2022 and 2023 harvests, a white and a rose from 2023 and two red blends from 2022. The reds aged nineteen months, the Rhone reds in neutral barrels to keep the fruit forward, the Cabernet in new oak for backbone. Production sits around 750 cases, true garagiste scale, which is why you will find Ciento among the small producers at the Central Coast’s Garagiste Festival. These are wines made by hand, in small lots, by people who count every barrel.

What to pour Ciento Cellars with

Ciento’s Bordeaux-leaning reds want fat and char. Tannin binds to the protein and fat in red meat, so a structured Cabernet or Petit Verdot blend tastes rounder and softer the instant it meets red-oak-grilled tri-tip, the signature Paso dish, or a hard-seared steak. The smoke and the savory tannin meet in the middle.

The Rhone reds, with their riper, spicier fruit and softer tannin, lean toward grilled lamb, herb-roasted pork and mushroom dishes. The Viognier and rose pull in the opposite direction, their acidity cutting through richer fare, from roast chicken to spicy carnitas, a nod to Antonia’s heritage. Keep in mind that heat amplifies the perception of alcohol, so with truly fiery food the lower-alcohol rose is the safer pour. To match a particular dish, use our wine pairing generator.

Visiting Ciento Cellars

A tasting at Ciento feels like being let into someone’s home, because in a sense you are. Inside there is a tasting table, a comfortable living room and a bar, with a wall of windows looking straight into the working winery, and outside a handful of tables take in some of the most sweeping west-side views in Paso. The scale is small and the welcome is personal, often from Dave and Antonia themselves. Visits are by appointment, so reserve ahead and confirm current hours before you make the drive up Peachy Canyon. To plan the rest of your day on the west side, see our Paso Robles guide.

Ciento Cellars: common questions