Three Napa- and Sonoma-based wine services companies have established locations in Paso Robles recently, reflecting the area’s growing stature as a wine region.

“It confirms that Paso Robles is a legitimate wine region,” Kevin Sass, winemaker at Halter Ranch Vineyard, said of the companies’ decisions to locate in San Luis Obispo County. “It says we’ve stepped up a category to a new level of business.”

Tapp Label invested $1.5 million to open a 9,000-square-foot plant to print high-end labels and shrink sleeves at 3330 Ramada Drive just off Highway 101, calling the area a strategic location for company growth. The St. Helena-based company has produced labels for SLO County wineries including Chronic Cellars, Baileyana and Cane & Fable as well as numerous national brands.

Next door at 3320 Ramada Drive, ETS Laboratories — a leading laboratory company with locations in Napa, Sonoma, Oregon and Washington — built the Central Coast’s first ISO-accredited lab. The new 13,000-square-foot lab, with offices and seminar space on the second level, provides advanced testing and analysis that growers and winemakers previously had to send off for, with services such as advanced phenolic analysis, arsenic testing and export services.

“What they provide is above and beyond what any individual winery lab can do,” said Sass, who previously shipped samples to ETS in Napa.

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