My life as a Wino
This weekend Mike and I took a trip up to Ventura. The original plan had been to go to Six Flags on Friday and then go to Ventura, but then my family decided to have an impromptu family reunion on Friday. Probably for the best anyways, the reunion was fun, plus I'm guessing Valencia would've been Death Valley hotttt. So anyway, instead of taking the normal boring 101 route to Ventura, we decided to make it interesting. We took the 5 to the 126, which goes through the country and some interesting little towns. I decided that along the way we should do some wine tasting, and went online to find places to go. The first stop was Giessinger Winery in Fillmore. When we got out of the car in Fillmore, the thermometer said it was 113, ick. We go into this building, which is pretty much like a large barn, and we are the only ones there. There is no air conditioning, just a bunch of fans blowing hot air around. Then we meet Rosie, the ice cream with hair in it eating, Gatorade splattering, wine tasting lady. I think she also bottled the wine herself in the back (from this point on I referred to Geissinger as "the moonshine place"). She was entertaining because, in her words "us country folk have no shame." We paid our $6 a person to sample like 15 different wines. Some were decent, others were pretty bad. They did make an excellent port, it tasted like chocolate covered strawberries. I felt obligated to buy some wine, so I bought a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.
We took the 126 to the 150, going through Ojai. We stopped at Wendy's for some food, and while we were there some old man came up to me and said "I was wondering what that smell was but then I realized its just your stinky feet! HAHAHAHAHAHA just kidding." Yeah okay. It was probably best that we got out of there quickly. Plus there were two flies trying to mate on my leg. Gross.
Next stop was the Old Creek Ranch Winery in Oak View. It was out this old tiny road that at one point had a creek flowing through it. The lady who helped us with the tasting was the owner of the winery and told us about her grandfather who had come from Italy. The wines at this place were a lot better than the moonshine place, and we got to taste 10 different wines for $5. I bought a Petite Sirah and Mike purchased a Riesling Ice Wine. We then took the 33 down to Ventura, checked into our hotel, had some drinks at Erik Eriksson's, had dinner and more wine at Cafe Fiore, then went to an Elvis bar with Trista. After the Elvis bar we decided to have a drink back at Trista's.
The next day we woke up, grabbed some food, and then headed up to Santa Barbara. We were going to go shopping on State Street, but then realized that they were all stores we had back in LA. So instead, we drove around for a bit, stopped at a park that overlooked the ocean, and headed back south. On the way back, we stopped at Herzog Cellars in Oxnard. This place was definitely the classiest of the wineries we had been to this weekend. We decided to do to $6 reserve tasting (instead of the $3 regular tasting) and tasted 4 of the expensive wines. However, the tasting fee was waived since Mike bought a bottle of the limited edition Petite Sirah, plus they let us taste one of the wines from the regular tasting menu. Sweet. From Oxnard we took the 1 down the coast all the way to Santa Monica. There was lots of traffic through Malibu, but it was so pretty it didn't matter.
So all in all, I think I tried around 30 different wines this weekend.
We took the 126 to the 150, going through Ojai. We stopped at Wendy's for some food, and while we were there some old man came up to me and said "I was wondering what that smell was but then I realized its just your stinky feet! HAHAHAHAHAHA just kidding." Yeah okay. It was probably best that we got out of there quickly. Plus there were two flies trying to mate on my leg. Gross.
Next stop was the Old Creek Ranch Winery in Oak View. It was out this old tiny road that at one point had a creek flowing through it. The lady who helped us with the tasting was the owner of the winery and told us about her grandfather who had come from Italy. The wines at this place were a lot better than the moonshine place, and we got to taste 10 different wines for $5. I bought a Petite Sirah and Mike purchased a Riesling Ice Wine. We then took the 33 down to Ventura, checked into our hotel, had some drinks at Erik Eriksson's, had dinner and more wine at Cafe Fiore, then went to an Elvis bar with Trista. After the Elvis bar we decided to have a drink back at Trista's.
The next day we woke up, grabbed some food, and then headed up to Santa Barbara. We were going to go shopping on State Street, but then realized that they were all stores we had back in LA. So instead, we drove around for a bit, stopped at a park that overlooked the ocean, and headed back south. On the way back, we stopped at Herzog Cellars in Oxnard. This place was definitely the classiest of the wineries we had been to this weekend. We decided to do to $6 reserve tasting (instead of the $3 regular tasting) and tasted 4 of the expensive wines. However, the tasting fee was waived since Mike bought a bottle of the limited edition Petite Sirah, plus they let us taste one of the wines from the regular tasting menu. Sweet. From Oxnard we took the 1 down the coast all the way to Santa Monica. There was lots of traffic through Malibu, but it was so pretty it didn't matter.
So all in all, I think I tried around 30 different wines this weekend.