Sunday Nov. 23, 2014, Ann and I flew into LAX to be met by Trevor and Meghan for our journey to Paso Robles wine country, where we would do a little tasting of wines and the countryside around Paso Robles. En route, we stopped by beautiful Santa Barbara to see niece Chelsea, who is an undergrad there.
Nice picture of Chelsea anyway...
Then we wound our way along the coast and through the foothills to Paso Robles, passing vineyards along the way:
Doug and Mitch (two brothers who operate Villa Nel Mondo) were great hosts, having really good suggestions for us on how to spend our day. The first order of business, however, was a look at the grounds Monday morning. Not to pat myself on the back too much, but I think I chose well when selecting Villa Nel Mondo as a place to stay.
We hired a van to take us from winery to winery, including some vineyards suggested by Kevin and some suggested by Mitch and Trevor's work associates. In the end, we settled on the following itinerary: Sextant, followed by lunch, followed by Turley, Proulx, Opolo, then Justin. What follows are some wine tasting photos of the group, sampling mostly reds from the region. Many of them were blends, such as GSM (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre) or even more complex mixtures. Others featured single grapes, including Pinot Noir, Cabernet, Zinfandel, and Syrah. We were not particularly impressed with Sextant. Turley was good. Proulx was a great little winery, though we could not purchase their inexpensive Cab, which was quite tasty, bc the supply truck was late. We had nice cheese and crackers at Opolo. Then began the long winding road to Justin.
Well, Laura Linda, our driver, was new on the job, and she really didn't know the roads to each winery very well, so she took a right where she should have taken a left, and we ended up almost back at Villa Nel Mondo. Fortunately, we remembered that Mitch had suggested a winery called Le Cuvier on a hilltop near their place, so we re-directed our driver there. What a lucky mistake! It was our favorite winery of the day. They paired food with each wine, the host was great, and the views spectacular!
We headed toward Justin winery and Ming and Ian realized they were almost out of gas, so we backtracked to a gas station while the others forged ahead. They were momentarily diverted by a 'squirrel moment' following signs to walnuts, and ended up at another hilltop winery called Daou. We decided that was our lunch destination after taking in the amazing views, so we went to Pasolivo first, then backtracked to Daou. Flavored CA olive oils with various spices/salts were a hit. But the real coup de grace of the day was our gourmet lunch (with wine of course) at Daou. Here are some memories:
After our wine tasting adventures, we headed back on the trafficky highways to Carlsbad, CA. We spent Wednesday exploring some of the sights and farmers market and beach areas around Trevor and Meghan's apartment.
Here are some photos of the drive south and the beautiful CA coast.
Some Carlsbad scenes.
And a very memorable Thanksgiving evening, watching the sun sink over the western horizon.
