gotta get away more often
we escaped la this weekend for the first time since the holidays and the first time for us since shelby started school. we decided the easiest quick trip would be our usual destination of paso robles to tackle the far out wineries. while many closed for sunday, we managed to knock off most on the eastside of the 101, and very few on the westside.
saturday we had to pick up our club shipment at chumeia which made our route travel northwest. the new zins from chumeia are too sweet for shelby, but i agreed with the pourer that it's a food wine. we also concluded the zins could be gifts for the sweet tooth friends 'o ours. the pourer also recommended we check out his parents tasting room downtown and not just b/c they were his parents.
so after chumeia we popped up to sylvester where we both hit the jackpot somewhat. sylvester sells their non-vintages as box wines, so shelby got a 5 liter merlot, and i found the wine light stoppers i had been desperately seeking in la with no luck. from there we hit an unimpressive silver horse, although the vineyard/tasting room/pourers were awesome, and the label is pretty sleek.
we made a lunch stop before sylvester at matthew's at the airport which was really cool to eat in this swank little room with a massive wine rack on one side of us and the airport runways on the other littered with tiny planes.
locatelli was closed but had no signs up saying such, so we discovered many people besides us had attempted their room as well. we ended up at pretty smith which is a canadian woman fascinated with kokopelli and cabernet franc. i believe that's a bottle shelby bought as well. he's always in need of a good cab franc, and all her labels are oil paintings she's done herself of the kokopelli variety.
next we got lost for a bit trying to make it to rabbit ridge. when we finally arrived, may i say that rabbit ridge is GARGANTUAN? it's a fortress! we paid for the reidel syrah stemless logo glasses that had the bunny logo etched into them and enjoyed the non-vintage wild hare blend which apparently is not listed on the website...hmmm...
we ended the far out day at peachy canyon too. they only had their westside zin among all the other varietals they have branched out to make, but we were impressed with the syrah. we bought that over the uber cool jester bottle.
lake nacimiento was our home for the night. it's a privately owned facility, so it's overpriced and was weird with the way we paid and such, but we had the entire rocky cyn campsite to ourselves and set up camp right across from the restrooms with running water which helped tremendously when we got back to the site at 10pm b/c it was pitch black save for the bright orange glow of the bldg night light.
back on the road, we headed toward downtown paso for grub and silver stone. i had worn my 4v zinbitch shirt all day and everywhere had compliments on it. we were a walking advertisement for them. the only issue i had with it was the poor little girl at matthew's who exclaimed shocked and appalled to her mother, "GASP! she's got the "b" word on her shirt!" her mother told her to hush and ignore it.
silver stone became a very interesting and long stop. earlier, on the backroads, this couple from sacramento had been following us from winery to winery, so we got pretty acquainted by the time we ended at peachy. his name was andy, and he maintained and repaired horse stalls, so he had business trips all over california. this was a leisure weekend for he and his wife, so they came down to taste. they were going to find a room in town, so we said our goodbyes after peachy when we headed for the lake.
at silver stone, which is basically a hallway with a bar, we met over the course of the hour and a half stay (we arrived 15 minutes before they closed, but the woman kept pouring as 7pm came and went,) a psychic rolfer, a british couple, a couple who are turning their templeton ranch into a bed & breakfast, and a guy who grew up in agoura, has a boat on the lake, two kids with his wife, and were entertaining his producer brother and wife up from thousand oaks. conversations abound! my shirt started it all as everyone wanted to know where i got it and how they could get one.
while everyone around us were joining the wine club, we waited to purchase a tempranillo that, i'm sorry, knocks the socks off 4v's loco, and a ringer tee for shelby b/c the pourer had cleverly put discounts and prizes into plastic eggs and had all of us grab one. i picked the "free flight of wine" to cover our tasting fee and shelby picked a "30% off gray shirt." it's a nice shirt - not a cheapy, so well worth the $15, if he'll ever wear it.;P i also must mention that the roseta was quite tasty for a rose.
shelby acquired cards from the ranchers who want us to come stay with them the next time we travel north and the psychic rolfer who, although she had no hint of his dislike for her practice, told him they could use some good hands up there. she also told me she never gets readings, but she sees the energy off both of us, and while exclaiming that she knows he is a good lover, she tells me that i will achieve my dreams, and whatever i am doing right now, i need to do "balls out!" that's what the voice kept saying to her for me - "BALLS OUT!"
groovy.
cool hand luke's is a pretty tasty place. they are very comparable to aj spurs, and we coasted back to the campground very full and extremely tired.
this post is tiring. i'll write out easter later so it's not an absolute novel now.
saturday we had to pick up our club shipment at chumeia which made our route travel northwest. the new zins from chumeia are too sweet for shelby, but i agreed with the pourer that it's a food wine. we also concluded the zins could be gifts for the sweet tooth friends 'o ours. the pourer also recommended we check out his parents tasting room downtown and not just b/c they were his parents.
so after chumeia we popped up to sylvester where we both hit the jackpot somewhat. sylvester sells their non-vintages as box wines, so shelby got a 5 liter merlot, and i found the wine light stoppers i had been desperately seeking in la with no luck. from there we hit an unimpressive silver horse, although the vineyard/tasting room/pourers were awesome, and the label is pretty sleek.
we made a lunch stop before sylvester at matthew's at the airport which was really cool to eat in this swank little room with a massive wine rack on one side of us and the airport runways on the other littered with tiny planes.
locatelli was closed but had no signs up saying such, so we discovered many people besides us had attempted their room as well. we ended up at pretty smith which is a canadian woman fascinated with kokopelli and cabernet franc. i believe that's a bottle shelby bought as well. he's always in need of a good cab franc, and all her labels are oil paintings she's done herself of the kokopelli variety.
next we got lost for a bit trying to make it to rabbit ridge. when we finally arrived, may i say that rabbit ridge is GARGANTUAN? it's a fortress! we paid for the reidel syrah stemless logo glasses that had the bunny logo etched into them and enjoyed the non-vintage wild hare blend which apparently is not listed on the website...hmmm...
we ended the far out day at peachy canyon too. they only had their westside zin among all the other varietals they have branched out to make, but we were impressed with the syrah. we bought that over the uber cool jester bottle.
lake nacimiento was our home for the night. it's a privately owned facility, so it's overpriced and was weird with the way we paid and such, but we had the entire rocky cyn campsite to ourselves and set up camp right across from the restrooms with running water which helped tremendously when we got back to the site at 10pm b/c it was pitch black save for the bright orange glow of the bldg night light.
back on the road, we headed toward downtown paso for grub and silver stone. i had worn my 4v zinbitch shirt all day and everywhere had compliments on it. we were a walking advertisement for them. the only issue i had with it was the poor little girl at matthew's who exclaimed shocked and appalled to her mother, "GASP! she's got the "b" word on her shirt!" her mother told her to hush and ignore it.
silver stone became a very interesting and long stop. earlier, on the backroads, this couple from sacramento had been following us from winery to winery, so we got pretty acquainted by the time we ended at peachy. his name was andy, and he maintained and repaired horse stalls, so he had business trips all over california. this was a leisure weekend for he and his wife, so they came down to taste. they were going to find a room in town, so we said our goodbyes after peachy when we headed for the lake.
at silver stone, which is basically a hallway with a bar, we met over the course of the hour and a half stay (we arrived 15 minutes before they closed, but the woman kept pouring as 7pm came and went,) a psychic rolfer, a british couple, a couple who are turning their templeton ranch into a bed & breakfast, and a guy who grew up in agoura, has a boat on the lake, two kids with his wife, and were entertaining his producer brother and wife up from thousand oaks. conversations abound! my shirt started it all as everyone wanted to know where i got it and how they could get one.
while everyone around us were joining the wine club, we waited to purchase a tempranillo that, i'm sorry, knocks the socks off 4v's loco, and a ringer tee for shelby b/c the pourer had cleverly put discounts and prizes into plastic eggs and had all of us grab one. i picked the "free flight of wine" to cover our tasting fee and shelby picked a "30% off gray shirt." it's a nice shirt - not a cheapy, so well worth the $15, if he'll ever wear it.;P i also must mention that the roseta was quite tasty for a rose.
shelby acquired cards from the ranchers who want us to come stay with them the next time we travel north and the psychic rolfer who, although she had no hint of his dislike for her practice, told him they could use some good hands up there. she also told me she never gets readings, but she sees the energy off both of us, and while exclaiming that she knows he is a good lover, she tells me that i will achieve my dreams, and whatever i am doing right now, i need to do "balls out!" that's what the voice kept saying to her for me - "BALLS OUT!"
groovy.
cool hand luke's is a pretty tasty place. they are very comparable to aj spurs, and we coasted back to the campground very full and extremely tired.
this post is tiring. i'll write out easter later so it's not an absolute novel now.