Winery History

The hus­band and wife team of Niels and Bim­mer Udsen estab­lished Cas­toro Cel­lars in 1983 with the goal of pro­duc­ing world-class wines from Paso Rob­les-appel­la­tion grapes. Niels, born and raised in Ven­tu­ra, Cal­i­for­nia, got start­ed in the Paso Rob­les wine busi­ness while study­ing Agribusi­ness at Cal­i­for­nia Poly­tech­nic Uni­ver­si­ty, San Luis Obis­po. Even­tu­al­ly, His love of pro­duc­tion and wines led him and Bim­mer to estab­lish their own win­ery in the area.

Cas­toro Cel­lars has grown to what it is today by a series of events that Niels and Bim­mer Udsen call the ​‘back­wards approach.’ The Udsen’s first made and sold the wine, then pur­chased their own equip­ment, the win­ery, the tast­ing room, and then began pur­chas­ing and plant­i­ng vineyards.

Castoro’s tast­ing room is in Tem­ple­ton off scenic High­way 46 West and the wine­mak­ing facil­i­ty is locat­ed on the East Side of Paso Rob­les in San Miguel. Both facil­i­ties opened in 1990.

With the help of Niels’ men­tor and Cas­toro Cellar’s wine­mak­er, Tom Myers, the Udsen’s have gone from mak­ing a few bar­rels of wine for fam­i­ly and friends in a rent­ed cor­ner of some­one else’s win­ery to devel­op­ing an enter­prise for Cas­toro Cellars.

Cas­toro Cel­lars cur­rent­ly has over 1,400 acres of Estate vine­yards, which are cer­ti­fied organ­ic by CCOF and all the vine­yards are SIP Cer­ti­fied.