Keeping it simple with serious passion!

The dream that is PaZa began 2005 when owners Pamela and Zane Dobson set aside some pretty extreme sports and a love of extraordinary automobiles (at least for a few more years), sold their home to buy an old farmhouse, and traded the Porsche for a tractor.

Since then, the PaZa team has been sharing an over-the-top enthusiasm for everything related to the world of wine. 

Our Process

From the beginning, our approach to winemaking has always been more hands-off, providing gentle guidance to let the fruit and the place shine. 

With excellent fruit quality from the beginning, our wines see only minimal sulfite additions, are never filtered, finned, or adjusted. Our premium red wines are treated as reserves and aged in barrels for 2 to 3 years. To let the wine remain the star, we only incorporate a small percentage of new barrels with each vintage. Total production now ranges from 600 to 800 cases per year. Around here, we never take ourselves too seriously, but we always take our wines very seriously!

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Our Region

PaZa is located on the Auburn and Placer Wine Trails, only minutes northeast of Sacramento, and about halfway between Auburn, Newcastle, and Lincoln. Touring our wonderful area you can catch glimpses of history, with roots deep in agriculture, and you just might see olive orchards and gnarly shaped grapevines dating-back to days of The Gold Rush. All this is just a short scenic drive to the beautiful foothills, to escape the hustle and bustle, and enjoy some award winning wines in our laid-back atmosphere.

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Our Vines

We believe that great wines really do begin in the vineyard. Terrior is real, and can’t be forced or faked. Our vineyards consist of varietals with lineage traced-back to France, Italy, Spain, and even Germany and Croatia. They’re planted in soil known as Andregg, which is comprised mostly of granite, clay, and sandy loam, thriving on rolling hillsides ranging from 500’ to 1300’ elevation, with perfect exposures based on the different varietals. Since the beginning, we’ve farmed organically, and personally manage the vineyards for sustainability, and strive for healthy balance. This type of focused effort does require more hard work, but we know visual and physical contact yields consistently higher quality fruit.

Our Team

Pamela

For many years, Pamela was an avid bicyclist, long-distance hiker, and snow skier, and has participated in numerous long distance bike races as well as multi day cross-country hikes.

These extreme sports have taken her everywhere in California and across the nation. Thankfully, in the Spring of 2020, she retired after almost 45-years in the retail grocery business!

This career did provide some great wine experiences along the way (at least in the good old days), and for several years she managed the California State Fair Wine Garden. But, now she’s ready to focus everything on PaZa!

Zane

At age 45, Zane embarked on his second career as a vintner! With assistance from a few key mentors, he skipped the hobby stage and dove head-first into commercial winemaking.

Before winemaking, Pamela, and a move to California, he was born and raised in Oklahoma. Yes, a state rarely, if ever, associated with fine wine! His first career was engineering and design in the up and down world of airplanes. He got hooked early and worked on exciting projects, including avionics upgrades and modifying interiors of private jets for movie stars. Later, he progressed to research, development, and even flight testing in the general aviation industry.

He's spent a lot of time around fast cars has participated in many driving events and car races, such as One Lap of America. For 15+ years, this "hobby" took him all over the United States and Europe, and all he has to show for it is gobs of excellent friendships and memories of fast times!

Cyndie

Cyndie has worked along the Placer County Wine Trail for almost 13 years. After spending time behind the bar at several local wineries, she joined the team at PaZa in February 2017. She has a passion for all things wine, taking several classes toward her Wine Business Certificate at Sonoma State.
​ Although much of her “free” time is spent exploring other wine regions throughout California, her true passion is found here in the Placer County foothills. Cyndie enjoys our many European varietals, including many of her Italian favorites, and the unique experience she can give her customers when they Escape to the Shed.