An Orgy of Wine, Food, Paso, Central Coast, and More
From www.vegaswineaux.com
December 9, 2008 by vegasrenie (Check me out!)
Other than the trip to San Jose for A Taste of Paso Wines in August, my only other trip to wine country this year was to Paso Robles in early spring, where I enjoyed the budding of new (vine) life while I was there with the California Contingent of Rod my Wineaux Guy, his sister Bunny, and her friend Don. My intrepid group and I visited our winery friends while there and enjoyed every moment.
And it was much the same this time. A group of friends, beautiful late autumn scenery, and California wineries. What could be better than that? Except that this time, there was a bit more time and more travel. And, as you may have seen from the last post, more landscape! John, Katie, Don, Mark, and I took our palates throughout the gorgeous Central Coast wine regions of California and had a orgy of wine tasting enjoyment.
But the landscape aside, there were the wineries. And although we weren’t able to drop in on all of our friends (we tried our very best to hook up with Victor of Vines on the Marycrest again but time failed us), we found that the bouncing around from place to place was a lot of fun, and time just flew by.
Our first stop was with our old friend, Tobin James. And what luck! Toby was there in all his rockstar glory, kibitzing with the folks and autographing bottles. We only intended to taste a couple and then be on the road, but Toby is a gregarious sort (as are his pourers), and after about a half-dozen wines or so, we as a group ended up spending a little more time there than planned. And - surprise surprise - I ended up spending a little more money than I’d planned. Oh well. Like *that’s* never happened before! I bought a Bella Bella Barbera. Delicious! The Italian varietals seem to have found a home in Paso Robles.
We were all starving so we stopped at Papi’s downtown for a quick nosh of Mexican goodies and then headed over to the MidLife Crisis tasting room. Jill wasn’t there to visit with, so we were shortly on the road again and headed out to Denner, which had been recommended some time ago. Somehow none of us had ever quite made it there. I wrote a little about their sustainable efforts in this post, but this was my first time experiencing their wines.
Tasting at Denner
We finally found our way to Denner through all of the winding roads of Paso, and we tasted the following:
2007 Theresa (80% Roussane and 20% Viognier)
2007 Viognier
2006 Mourvedre
2006 Ditch Digger (GSM)
2005 Syrah
2006 Syrah
2006 The Ditch Digger
2006 The Dirt Worshipper (only 668 cases - beautiful baby that needs aging)
Marilyn Denner regaled us with tales about the winery, the new wine tasting room, plans for expansion, their plans for using solar power and more. We walked out of there poorer and cheerier.
Although I didn’t mention the wines we tasted at Tobin James or Midlife Crisis, that means nothing. After the long drive from Las Vegas, it just took a while for my brain to kick in and remember to take notes. Let’sjust call that an embarrassingly large Duh. I can say, however, that they weren’t pouring Roo Roy Red at Midlife Crisis. Dammit.
After Denner, we went to Opolo and met with Sherri who greeted us in spite of nursing an after-Thanksgiving headache of biblical proportions. What a classy lady! I’m almost embarrassed to list what she poured for us to taste, but here we go.
2006 Viognier
2005 Maestro (GMS & Counoise)
2005 Sangiovese
2006 Reserve Sangiovese (a wine-club-only bottle of lusciousness)
2005 Merlot
2005 Fusion
2005 Montagna-Mare (50/50 Barbera/Sangiovese)
2005 Cabernet Franc
2004 Rhapsody
2006 Mountain Zinfandel
2005 Reserve Zinfandel
2006 Clevenger Ranch Vineyard Zinfandel (let’s give a giant YUM)
2005 Petit Verdot
2005 Grand Rouge (I have a story about this one I’ll share at a later time)
Whew. And yes, even poorer when we left there. I was **this close** to giving up on my budgetary plans. Okay. I had pretty much thrown in the wine budget towel.
Then we went to Ortman Family Vineyards Tasting Room in downtown Paso. Couldn’t seem to stay away from that place! What a wonderful lineup of wines. Ready?
2007 Chardonnay - Edna Valley
2007 Syrah Rosé
2006 Pinot Noir - Santa Rita Hills (Fiddlestix Vineyard)
2006 Sangiovese - Paso Robles
2005 Syrah Paso Robles
2007 San Luis Obispo Cuvée Eddy
2003 Cabernet Sauvignon - White Cottage Ranch Vineyard (Howell Mountain in Napa Valley)
They were all good. Really good. But the Cab was incredible and tasted twice the price. Yup. More budget agony.
I cannot believe it. It’s only the first day and I’ve already gone over my wine budget for the ENTIRE four-day weekend! But I’ll have lots of nice wines to drink while living under the Sahara Avenue bridge….
Hunger pangs hit us and we headed out to McPhee’s Grill in Templeton. They have incredible food and wonderful ambiance. Don’t let the word “Grill” in the name fool you. They are anything but. It has the atmosphere of a fine dining restaurant with the casualness (if there’s such a word) that you’d expect from Paso Robles.
Because their Ancho Chile Apricot Jam Glazed Double Cut Pork Chops with sweet potato fries are incredibly popular, John, Mark, and Don had preordered them days before. Katie and I enjoyed the beautiful Cedar Plank Salmon with sweet mustard herb butter and roasted peppers agrodolce on grilled scallion Yukon gold mashed potatoes. The salmon had an almost buttery texture and was absolutely delicious. The pork chops - each the approximate size of a Volkswagen - were, according to the guys who snarfed them up, juicy and wonderful. I did manage to grab some of Don’s sweet potato fries. A weakness. And because the restaurant wine bottle prices are so reasonable, we went through two bottles of Pinot Noir. Oh yeah. This was drinking, not tasting!
It was dark, and we were finally on our way to our “home,” the San Luis Bay Inn in Avila Beach. We were full, tired, and savoring our wine purchases. There were loads more adventures to come, and I couldn’t wait!
Next post: Early morning coffee on the balcony overlooking San Luis Bay. And, of course, the wineries!
Stay tuned!
December 9, 2008 by vegasrenie (Check me out!)
Other than the trip to San Jose for A Taste of Paso Wines in August, my only other trip to wine country this year was to Paso Robles in early spring, where I enjoyed the budding of new (vine) life while I was there with the California Contingent of Rod my Wineaux Guy, his sister Bunny, and her friend Don. My intrepid group and I visited our winery friends while there and enjoyed every moment.
And it was much the same this time. A group of friends, beautiful late autumn scenery, and California wineries. What could be better than that? Except that this time, there was a bit more time and more travel. And, as you may have seen from the last post, more landscape! John, Katie, Don, Mark, and I took our palates throughout the gorgeous Central Coast wine regions of California and had a orgy of wine tasting enjoyment.
But the landscape aside, there were the wineries. And although we weren’t able to drop in on all of our friends (we tried our very best to hook up with Victor of Vines on the Marycrest again but time failed us), we found that the bouncing around from place to place was a lot of fun, and time just flew by.
Our first stop was with our old friend, Tobin James. And what luck! Toby was there in all his rockstar glory, kibitzing with the folks and autographing bottles. We only intended to taste a couple and then be on the road, but Toby is a gregarious sort (as are his pourers), and after about a half-dozen wines or so, we as a group ended up spending a little more time there than planned. And - surprise surprise - I ended up spending a little more money than I’d planned. Oh well. Like *that’s* never happened before! I bought a Bella Bella Barbera. Delicious! The Italian varietals seem to have found a home in Paso Robles.
We were all starving so we stopped at Papi’s downtown for a quick nosh of Mexican goodies and then headed over to the MidLife Crisis tasting room. Jill wasn’t there to visit with, so we were shortly on the road again and headed out to Denner, which had been recommended some time ago. Somehow none of us had ever quite made it there. I wrote a little about their sustainable efforts in this post, but this was my first time experiencing their wines.
Tasting at Denner
We finally found our way to Denner through all of the winding roads of Paso, and we tasted the following:
2007 Theresa (80% Roussane and 20% Viognier)
2007 Viognier
2006 Mourvedre
2006 Ditch Digger (GSM)
2005 Syrah
2006 Syrah
2006 The Ditch Digger
2006 The Dirt Worshipper (only 668 cases - beautiful baby that needs aging)
Marilyn Denner regaled us with tales about the winery, the new wine tasting room, plans for expansion, their plans for using solar power and more. We walked out of there poorer and cheerier.
Although I didn’t mention the wines we tasted at Tobin James or Midlife Crisis, that means nothing. After the long drive from Las Vegas, it just took a while for my brain to kick in and remember to take notes. Let’sjust call that an embarrassingly large Duh. I can say, however, that they weren’t pouring Roo Roy Red at Midlife Crisis. Dammit.
After Denner, we went to Opolo and met with Sherri who greeted us in spite of nursing an after-Thanksgiving headache of biblical proportions. What a classy lady! I’m almost embarrassed to list what she poured for us to taste, but here we go.
2006 Viognier
2005 Maestro (GMS & Counoise)
2005 Sangiovese
2006 Reserve Sangiovese (a wine-club-only bottle of lusciousness)
2005 Merlot
2005 Fusion
2005 Montagna-Mare (50/50 Barbera/Sangiovese)
2005 Cabernet Franc
2004 Rhapsody
2006 Mountain Zinfandel
2005 Reserve Zinfandel
2006 Clevenger Ranch Vineyard Zinfandel (let’s give a giant YUM)
2005 Petit Verdot
2005 Grand Rouge (I have a story about this one I’ll share at a later time)
Whew. And yes, even poorer when we left there. I was **this close** to giving up on my budgetary plans. Okay. I had pretty much thrown in the wine budget towel.
Then we went to Ortman Family Vineyards Tasting Room in downtown Paso. Couldn’t seem to stay away from that place! What a wonderful lineup of wines. Ready?
2007 Chardonnay - Edna Valley
2007 Syrah Rosé
2006 Pinot Noir - Santa Rita Hills (Fiddlestix Vineyard)
2006 Sangiovese - Paso Robles
2005 Syrah Paso Robles
2007 San Luis Obispo Cuvée Eddy
2003 Cabernet Sauvignon - White Cottage Ranch Vineyard (Howell Mountain in Napa Valley)
They were all good. Really good. But the Cab was incredible and tasted twice the price. Yup. More budget agony.
I cannot believe it. It’s only the first day and I’ve already gone over my wine budget for the ENTIRE four-day weekend! But I’ll have lots of nice wines to drink while living under the Sahara Avenue bridge….
Hunger pangs hit us and we headed out to McPhee’s Grill in Templeton. They have incredible food and wonderful ambiance. Don’t let the word “Grill” in the name fool you. They are anything but. It has the atmosphere of a fine dining restaurant with the casualness (if there’s such a word) that you’d expect from Paso Robles.
Because their Ancho Chile Apricot Jam Glazed Double Cut Pork Chops with sweet potato fries are incredibly popular, John, Mark, and Don had preordered them days before. Katie and I enjoyed the beautiful Cedar Plank Salmon with sweet mustard herb butter and roasted peppers agrodolce on grilled scallion Yukon gold mashed potatoes. The salmon had an almost buttery texture and was absolutely delicious. The pork chops - each the approximate size of a Volkswagen - were, according to the guys who snarfed them up, juicy and wonderful. I did manage to grab some of Don’s sweet potato fries. A weakness. And because the restaurant wine bottle prices are so reasonable, we went through two bottles of Pinot Noir. Oh yeah. This was drinking, not tasting!
It was dark, and we were finally on our way to our “home,” the San Luis Bay Inn in Avila Beach. We were full, tired, and savoring our wine purchases. There were loads more adventures to come, and I couldn’t wait!
Next post: Early morning coffee on the balcony overlooking San Luis Bay. And, of course, the wineries!
Stay tuned!
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