Posted on December 06, 2016

Paso Home, Nordic Heart | Wine Spectator

Kevin and Paula Jussila built a Finnish-accented compound in Central Coast wine country

The first time Kevin Jussila drove to the crest of his 80-acre Paso Robles property, in 2003, the top-of-the-world vista of sun-bleached hills and central California mountains made his heart race. "The first thing I thought was, 'I've got to have this,'?" he remembers. "My second thought was, 'This is [where] the kitchen [goes].'?"

Leaning against the black granite-topped kitchen island of the 5,300-square-foot home he has built overlooking his Kukkula Winery ("kukkula" means "hill" in Finnish), he pours an aromatic blend of estate-grown Counoise, Mourvèdre and Grenache that he named for his father, Aatto. "I'm a self-taught guy," says the 57-year-old financial adviser turned winemaker. "I have no [U.C.] Davis degree. I'm a guy who grew up in the construction world with my dad. I like creating things that are a physical manifestation of my work."

One of those things is his industrial-modern compound built of glass, steel and milled cedar, with accents of sandstone and volcanic rock that he mined himself from the property. Here, he juggles a successful 33-year career at Merrill Lynch while overseeing nearly 50 acres of vines, mainly Rhône varieties, all dry-farmed and head-trained.

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