For thirty years it was the quiet idea in the background, the thing Jason and Chris Lamoreaux kept circling back to between the businesses they built and sold. A winery. Someday. Then they found the hillside: twenty acres in the Willow Creek District, forested and steep, with a seasonal creek cutting straight through the middle of it. The someday finally had a place to stand.

A thirty-year someday, finally planted

Jason and Chris Lamoreaux are a husband-and-wife team and partners of three decades, California entrepreneurs who spent years launching and running companies together while a winery sat patiently on the back burner. The dream came into focus when they walked a rugged, forested twenty-acre property in the heart of the Willow Creek District of Paso Robles. It had everything they had pictured: steep slopes, calcareous soil, and a seasonal creek carving through the land. They bought it and got to work turning a long-held wish into rows of vines.

The name tells the story. Creekcut is an homage to that ancient creek, the one that cuts through the heart of the estate, feeds the native habitat around it, and shapes the character of the wines grown on its banks. This is a small, personal operation, the opposite of a corporate label, and it carries the particular pride of two people who built it themselves from the ground up after waiting most of their adult lives to do it.

Creekcut is named for the seasonal creek that cuts through the heart of the family twenty-acre Willow Creek estate.

Why Willow Creek grows great Rhone

Willow Creek is the cool, high heart of west Paso Robles, and it is the reason these wines taste the way they do. The estate sits on calcareous soil, the chalky, fast-draining limestone the southern Rhone shares, the kind of ground that stresses a vine just enough to make it pour its energy into small, concentrated berries rather than leafy growth. Steep slopes add drainage and sun, and the seasonal creek and surrounding forest keep a pocket of cool and life around the rows.

Then comes the air off the coast. Through the Templeton Gap, a low notch in the hills to the west, the Pacific sends cool afternoon and evening air inland, so hot summer days give way to genuinely cold nights. That wide daily temperature swing lets the grapes ripen fully while holding onto their natural acidity, which is the balance every good Rhone red needs: ripeness without heaviness, power with lift. It is classic west-side Paso, and it is built for Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre.

Small-batch Rhone, single rows and blends

Creekcut works almost entirely in Rhone varieties, the grapes the estate was planted for. The home vineyard, named Cote de Colline, holds close to four acres of Syrah across the Alban, 877, and 470 clones, and just over two acres of Grenache on the 362 clone, set in two distinct sections of the property. From that fruit, plus a few trusted Willow Creek neighbors, the Lamoreauxs make both single-variety bottlings and Rhone blends, all in small lots.

Expect Grenache that leans bright and red-fruited, strawberry and raspberry with a savory, peppery edge, and Syrah that runs darker and meatier, blackberry and cracked pepper with a smoky, almost iron note that says cool-climate west-side Paso. The blends, built from Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre in the southern-Rhone tradition, aim for balance and drinkability over sheer size. These are wines made to be opened at a table, not worshipped on a shelf.

What to pour Creekcut with

Rhone reds are some of the most food-friendly wines on earth, and Creekcut bottlings are no exception. A juicy, red-fruited Grenache loves the grill: herb-roasted chicken, pork tenderloin, or a platter of grilled vegetables, where the wine brightness lifts the smoke and its soft tannins stay out of the way. Syrah wants something darker and richer to match its weight: braised short ribs, a peppercorn-crusted steak, lamb chops off the fire. The wine tannins bind to the fat and protein and turn silky, while the meat tastes cleaner with each sip.

Lean on the herbs, too. Syrah and Grenache both carry a savory, peppery, almost wild note that clicks with rosemary, thyme, and black pepper, so a simple lamb chop with a garden rub can taste like it was designed for the glass. Locally this is tri-tip country, grilled over red oak, and a Willow Creek Syrah next to a smoky slice is a perfect Paso pairing. Not sure what to open with tonight dinner? Our wine pairing generator can match a bottle to whatever is on your table.

Visiting Creekcut

Creekcut pours by seated tasting, and you choose your setting: an indoor lounge with a vinyl-record soundtrack, or a relaxed outdoor lounge looking over the estate, each built around a curated flight of five Rhone-style wines. The tasting room is on Willow Creek Road southwest of downtown Paso Robles, open Thursday through Monday and closed Tuesday and Wednesday. Reservations are recommended, especially on weekends, though the team does its best to fit in walk-ins when there is room. It is an intimate, owner-built stop, exactly the kind of small west-side winery a Paso day should be built around. For more of the neighborhood, see our Paso Robles guide.

Creekcut Winery: common questions