It was Mike's last weekend in town. We wanted to get away for a night or two; we decided that Paso Robles was a good place to go. We had thought about going up to San Francisco but since we only had one night that seemed like quite a drive. Plus, we love Paso and hadn't been there in awhile. It seemed fitting to head that way for our last trip stateside together.
Since it was just the two of us, we picked a road we had never been down before. We like to try new wineries when we go ourselves, get a taste for all that there is out there. So we chose Peachy Canyon Rd and started out our day...
Stop #1:
Stacked Stone Cellars
Tasting Fee: $5, waived with purchase, no military discount
(being the amateur photographer that I am, I was messing with setting on my camera and totally over-exposed all of my pictures from here)
The owner, Donald, was in the tasting room pouring. He has lived on the property for 35 years, but has only been making wine for the last 12 years or so. Mike and I always enjoy small places like this where you can talk to the owner and learn about the history of the wines. The wines were pretty good, he had a few Zinfandel's on his list that even I enjoyed (and I'm not a Zin gal). The location was very pretty, Donald was saying that during the summers he will sometimes have live music in the evenings. He also said that there were lots of weddings they hosted on the property.
The price for wine was anywhere from $28-$45 or so. We didn't purchase anything from here mainly because we were trying to save money, and because we have so much other wine at home. We both agreed, however, that this was a place to bring people back to or even go back ourselves one visit.
Stop #2:
Calcareous
Tasting Fee: $5, waived with purchase + military discount
Set back in sprawling beauty of the Paso Robles countryside, Calcareous sits upon a hill. They have this gorgeous patio for you to buy a glass of wine and enjoy the wonderful California sun. They also have a limited lunch menu here, which Mike and I didn't try but it looked good. Plates were about $10-$15.
Now on to the wine. As some of you may know Mike and I are not huge white wine fans. Often times even Chardonnays can be a little too sweet for how we like our wine. That being said, the Chardonnay at Calcareous we both really enjoyed. It was nice and smooth, a little sweet but it also had a little bit of that buttery taste without going overboard. We enjoyed their red wines very much. Our favorite was the Syrah, and we ended up brining a bottle of that home. Neither one of us was a huge fan of the Meritage blend. The bottles of wine ranged from $28-$40
Wine tasting side note: Sometimes the people you meet and start talking to are just as interesting as the different wines you are tasting. At Stacked Stone there was one other guy tasting while we were there, his name was Keith; one of his friends sons was about to graduate for USNA and the other son was trying to get in there. We ran into him again at Calcareous and he was asking questions that the gal serving had to pull out a spec sheet on the wines to answer...this peeked our interest. We asked Keith where he was from and what he did. Keith is from NYC and is starting up a food and wine tasting website. He and about 5 friends, all of whom were trained or had experience in culinary and viticulture were starting a review website. They were traveling around the states, and had one international guy, who were doing reviews to get their website started. Said website is www.hungrykeith.com and is set to launch on April 1, 2011. We had a lot of fun talking to Keith, not the namesake of the website he informed us, and Mike and I both decided we want his job. We told him some of our favorite wineries in town, and a few of our favorite places to eat as well and we went our separate ways. Until...the next morning we were at Trader Joe's and who should run into none other than, Keith. I'm excited to check out the website when it launches in April.
So back to wine tasting...
Tasting Fee: $10, waived with 2 bottle purchase
As soon as you start walking up you notice a sign that says dogs must stay in cars :( I can only guess their winery dog is not friendly with other dogs. Onto their wine. For $10 you only got to taste 4 wines, and each bottle was over $50 to purchase. Needless to say when we say that Mike and I said we weren't buying any no matter how much we like them, which it turned out not too much. They were all good, but not great or amazing. The Petite Syrah was our favorite but at $52 we weren't going to purchase it. So we tasted our four wines and left none-too-impressed.
Stop #4: Poalillo Vineyard and Winery
Tasting Fee: $7, waived with purchase
We were on our way to Justin Vineyards for lunch and wine tasting when we saw this brightly colored house from the road. We saw that it was a winery and we decided to slam on our break and pull down the drive way (as we were tasting 3 other cars did the same thing).
They have a lovely picnic area just outside the tasting room that overlooks some of their vineyards.
This sign hangs on the wall just to the left of the door to the tasting room.
Server, and owner, 82 year old Charlie. Charlie is in the process of retiring and handing the business over to his daughter, who lives in the large brightly colored house that you see from the road.
We had so much fun at this winery. Charlie used to be a photographer for magazines and newspapers in the 1960s and 70s. He even has some of his photography hanging up in the tasting room, one of them is of Bobby Kennedy and family! We enjoyed the company as well as the wines. We both even like the rose wine they have, which is a huge rarity for Mike and I. We will definitely come back here and bring some people with us. Like I said before, Mike and I enjoy these small tasting rooms where the owner is the one pouring the wine. So fascinating to listen to their stories and the history of the wines.
Stop #5: Justin Vineyard
Tasting Fee: $10, includes glass
We are members, we love this place, we have been here many times. This time however, we went with intention of having lunch at Deborah's Room the Michelin Star restaurant at Justin. We have tried many times but it has always been closed, and it skirted us again. They were closing early for a wedding on the other side of the winery. They did however have a few pizza doughs left and some soup, so we got a Margherita pizza and carrot soup and then ate on the patio. Even for it being somewhat of a "to-go" lunch it was still good. Someday we might be able to actually eat in Deborah's Room and experience that, but it's going to have to be another time.
This was the first time we stayed the night in Paso Robles. We got a suite with a jacuzzi tub at the La Quinta. We will probably stay there again in the future. It was nice, they had a breakfast buffet, and...they are pet friendly! Well all La Quinta's are pet friendly. But I plan on doing another wine tasting trip with Sunset and I might just stay the night.
The next morning on our way out of town we ran into Keith, as I mentioned before. He told us that we showed try Turley Wine Cellars. He is not the first person to have recommended this winery so we decided we would stop on our out of town.
Stop #6: Turley Wine Cellars
Tasting Fee: $10, waived with purchase + military discount
Turley is known for their old vine Zinfandel. And by old vine they mean vines that have been there for 120 years. Now that's old. This trip seemed to be a lot of wineries that specialized in Zinfandel wines, which usually I am not a huge fan of. I don't know if I'm getting used to them and liking them more or if these few wineries just had really good Zins, maybe a bit of both, but I liked a Zin at every place we went this trip. Turley was no exception. We actually bought a bottle of one of their Zins to open up when Mike comes back home in the fall. Their wine bottle prices range from around $30 up to around $50.
It was another successful wine tasting trip. We found some new wineries that we are excited to take people that visit back to. So who is going to be my first visitor and my next Paso Robles wine tasting partner??
