Drive up Peachy Canyon Road until the oaks give way to open sky, and the soil under the vines turns the color of old roses. This is pink calcareous limestone near 1,900 feet, and it is where Jim and Barbara Moroney chose to start over. Jim had spent a career as publisher and CEO of The Dallas Morning News, a paper that won three Pulitzers under his watch. He and Barbara had dreamed of a winery since their Stanford days exploring Napa. They planted vines in 2013 and named the place Sixmilebridge, after the County Clare village their great-grandfather Jacobus Moroney left for Texas.

From the pressroom to the vine row

Jim Moroney spent decades in newspapers, leading the company behind The Dallas Morning News through an era that earned the paper three Pulitzer Prizes. He and Barbara, both Stanford graduates, had wandered Napa as students and quietly carried the idea of a winery for years. When they found their parcel high on the Paso Robles west side, they committed to it the way a publisher commits to a long story: with patience and a sense of legacy.

They named it for a place they had never farmed but had always belonged to. Sixmilebridge sits on the River O’Garney in County Clare, Ireland, the home village of Jim’s great-grandfather Jacobus Moroney before he emigrated to Texas. The estate’s red marker poles are not decoration. They reference a bullet that tore through the hat of a priest defending working people during an 1852 street clash in that village. It is a family memory turned into a winery’s signature, which tells you something about how the Moroneys think about roots.

The estate’s red marker poles echo a bullet that passed through a priest’s hat during an 1852 skirmish in the real Sixmilebridge, County Clare.

Pink limestone at the top of the west side

The estate runs to roughly 95 acres, with about a quarter planted to vine, perched near 1,900 to 2,000 feet in the Adelaida District. The ground here is porous calcareous limestone, the pink and white seabed rock that defines Paso’s best west-side sites. Limestone drains hard and forces roots deep, and its reflective pale color helps ripen fruit cleanly on steep, multi-aspect slopes.

This is classic Adelaida terroir: cool air spilling down through the Santa Lucia Range and the Templeton Gap, producing a dramatic day-to-night temperature swing. Hot afternoons push ripeness while cold nights lock in acid and color, so Cabernet here can be both ripe and firmly structured. The vineyard is farmed organically and planted to the full Bordeaux family, with Cabernet Sauvignon making up about half, alongside Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, plus newer plantings of Touriga Nacional and Marselan.

The wines, Left Bank and Right Bank

Winemaker Anthony Yount, also known for his work at Denner and his own Kinero Cellars, treats this fruit with a light hand and a clear belief that the vineyard, not the cellar, makes the wine. The flagship Estate Cabernet Sauvignon is the house statement: blackcurrant and dark plum wrapped around a graphite spine, with savory herb notes and the fine, dusty tannin that limestone tends to give. Earlier Estate Cuvee bottlings layered Cabernet with Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot, aged long in mostly new French oak.

From the 2019 vintage on, the estate split its blends into two town-named cuvees that nod to the geography around Sixmilebridge. Shannon is the Left Bank style, Cabernet-driven and built for the long haul, dense with cassis and cedar. Limerick is the Right Bank, led by Merlot and Cabernet Franc, rounder and more red-fruited, with a softer mid-palate. There is also Paladin, a Zinfandel-led blend that adds brambly spice to the lineup. Across the wines you find polish without heaviness, fruit that stays dark and savory rather than sweet.

What to pour Sixmilebridge with

A young, Cabernet-driven wine like Shannon is built for protein and fat. Tannin binds to the protein and fat in a marbled ribeye or a red-oak-grilled Paso tri-tip, so the wine that feels grippy on its own turns plush against charred, fatty meat. The char also picks up the wine’s savory, graphite edge. The Estate Cabernet wants the same treatment: lamb, a dry-aged steak, anything with a crust off the grill.

Limerick, softer and led by Merlot and Cabernet Franc, is the more flexible partner. Pour it with herb-roasted pork, mushroom dishes, or a tomato-rich braise, where its red fruit and gentler tannin can play. Skip very spicy food with these wines, since heat amplifies the perception of alcohol and tannin and can make a structured red taste hot and bitter. If you want to match a specific dish to the right bottle, run it through our wine pairing generator for a quick read on structure and weight.

Visiting Sixmilebridge

Sixmilebridge sits at 5120 Peachy Canyon Road, high in the Adelaida District on the Paso Robles west side, and tastings are seated and best arranged by reservation, so confirm current hours and booking directly with the winery before you go. The reward for the drive is one of the more striking perches in the region, with pink limestone underfoot and Bordeaux vines climbing the slopes around you. To build a full day of west-side stops around it, see our Paso Robles guide.

Sixmilebridge Winery: common questions