Superstork 2017
October 10 to 16, 2017
Lorri and I took a brief excursion to the beautiful Paso Robles Central California wine area.We drove up through L(Hell)A on the 5 and 405 then back on the 5 up to Route 46 and across to Paso! Do I sound like a Californian?
We did a fair amount of tasting and a more than fair amount of buying. On Wednesday we visited Adelaida, Halter Ranch, Tablas Creek, Opolo, and Croad.
Thursday it was off to Sextant, Pelletiere, Brecon, and Oso Libre.
Friday, we took a short road trip to Cambria, a quaint village at the Coast about 25 miles from Paso. On the way back we made a quick stop for tastings at Cypher and Deovlet.
Saturday was hang around Paso day. There are plenty of tasting rooms, shops, bars and restaurants to keep one busy, and as fate would have it, Saturday was Paso's annual "Old Pioneer Day"!!! Featuring a parade around town and free beans in the town square, and music too! We tasted wines at LXV and Turtle Rock at Paso Underground
Tin City Sunday! Many people recommended a visit to an area called Tin City, an industrial park (sort of) on the outskirts south of town. So we did, tasting beer at Barrel House Brewing, cider at Tin City Cider and wines at Sans Liege, Fableist and Levo!
Tobin James
Lorri shopping in Toby's tasting room
Self-portrait (in the mirror)
We were looking at the tasting room wine-pourer. She was holding the phone high up!
Our VRBO on Spring Street, downtown Paso Robles
It was a great place!
It had a nice big balcony facing Spring Street
And the doors and windows were double-paned and sound-proof, which is good because Spring Street is busy
This couch will soon be a Murphy bed, according to the property manager
Plenty of room for a party in the LR
Fully equipped kitchen with a nice dining nook
Curved screen Samsung TV
See that clock on the wall back there? I had to remove the battery so the tick-tock wouldn't keep me awake all night
Last VRBO photo, maybe
First tasting stop on Wednesday
Adelaida has been around for a while but this is a relatively new tasting room. They did a nice job.
We joined them for a tasting but we did not join their wine club
I took a lot of photos of vineyards and such because I plan to do some paintings of wine country scenes.
Any time you see "top" you can click on it and you'll go back to the top of this page
Halter Ranch is another one that's been around for a while. The last time we visited, the tasting room was in an out-building behind the old Victorian house.
Now there is a covered bridge and then a long driveway that gets you to their new tasting room
The new tasting facility
Lots of vines, lots of wines!
Tasting room selfie
Then it was off to Tablas Creek, another Paso stallwart. We didn't have enough gas to get to Domaine Beaucastel. Don't know why I don't have more Tablas Creek photos
We had lunch at Opolo but didn't do a tasting.
They have good food there, including pizza that they cook in the wood-fired oven you see behind me
I peeked in to Opolo's barrel room where a private tasting was going on.
I looked to my left and saw a couple stills! Opolo is getting in the spirits spirit!
Two stills!
This could be a painting some day. I think I'll not include the porta-potties though.
Croad? Never heard of Croad but Croad was down the road...
Kiwi? Kiwis in Paso?
Lorri and friends
Turns out there are kiwis in Paso, just not the bird type
A freindly wine worker offered to show us the dumping and de-stemming and sorting of freshly picked grapes. Lorri is having a taste.
These were zinfandel grapes, the grape that put Paso Robles on the wine map.
There goes another bin!
They get de-stemmed and sorted and then into another bin and eventually into a fermentation tank.
Click here for a video of this machine at work
While we were learning about this operation we were joined by Janis Denner, whose grapes these happened to be! We know Janis (slightly) because she owns Pelletiere Winery where we are members of the wine club. Pelletiere is just down the road from Croad and Janis shares their equipment occasionally.
There is just something peaceful about vineyards
This could be in Tuscany or France or Sonoma or Rioja but it's in Paso Robles!
This is our balcony. What's wrong with this picture? That's right! It appears that Lorri is having a martini and I'm drinking wine.
This is Spring Street. Our unit is on the right, directly behind the lamp post. The tree to the right of the lamp post is the tree in the photo just above tis one.
Thursday at Sextant. Good wines!
Big tanks!
Lots of activity.
I bought a hat.
As I mentioned, we are members at Pelletierre and we needed to stop there and pick up our Fall wine club order.
So we did. We had a nice visit with Janis and bought some extra wine too!
wine vines
Quite a few people we talked to brought up Brecon when we asked about recommendations.
So, we reconned we'd go to Brecon. So we did.
They had a nice relaxing tasting procedure. You pick your chair and they bring the tastings to you. This is where we sat.
Oso Libre was also mentioned quite a bit.
Oso Libre is not only a winery but a working ranch.
They raise beef cattle, sheep, llamas and assorted other tasty creatures, as well as wine vines. Actually I don't know how tasty Llamas are, but we saw some there.
Una chica libre y dos osos libres!
We had a nice picnic lunch at Oso Libre
Lunch
Oso Libre
Sheep out yonder
More vines
Cambria
We took a day trip on Friday to Cambria, about 25 miles west of Paso near the Coast.
They have a "Scarecrow Festival" and each shop, restaurant, school and gas station, gets in on the contest. Some of them were good, some were funny, some were both.
This is Lorri and me in a couple years
A nice-looking B&B
One of my faves
Lorri and me in a couple years
I think we actually saw this lady walking around town!
This sort of reminded me of Lorri's dad. Don't tell him.
This little piggy went to market...
We had lunch here. It's a couple miles up the coast from Cambria
The view from our table
My view from our table
Centrally Grown, a big impressive building but not doing a whole lot of business
The view up the Coast from Centrally Grown. Somewhere up that way on the top of a hill is the Hearst Castle in San Simeon
We stopped at Moonstone Beach and went for a walk
The beach is sort of rugged and it was a cool windy day
We were glad we have some extra clothes to layer on
A white heron (egret?) takes off
Man-made log piles. They looked like they needed to be lit.
Can you see the people in this photo? They are not us.
This is Lorri
OK, back to Paso, or actually, Templeton, on the way back from Cambria
We stopped for tastings at Cypher and Deovlet, just off route 46.
Pioneer Day!
Paso's annual Pioneer Day Parade passed by our VRBO on Spring Street.
This was the view from our balcony
Wagons, horses, cowboys, farm equipment...
Us on the balcony
This is just one of the ancient, noisy, smelly, fume-spewing contraptions that passed by.
Here is another one. I suppose somebody knows what these things were used for. Not me.
There was a large Mexican or Hispanic presence. I suppose they were the original pioneers in this area.
We ran in to these lovely ladies a while later at a pub.
Click on Parade videos below.
Free beans!
Cauldrens of free beans! We had some and they were very good...and free!
There is a Pioneer Day tradition that you can ride your horse into the Pine St. Saloon and grab a beer. We didn't believe it.
But, sure enough, there was a horse in there!
I guess when the horse had enough beer, it was time to go.
We had heard about Paso Underground so we sought it out
Turns out it's not underground at all! It's an over-sized garage behind some shops with four or five wine-tasting bars.
We had a nice tasting and bought a couple bottles at Turtle Rock.
On Sunday, our last day, we decided to visit Tin City, another new experience for us.
Tin City is actually a sort of upscale industrial park inhabited mostly by wineries, a beer brewery, a cider place, and few assorted wine industry suppliers.
We first sampled a couple beers
at Barrel House Brewing
A man and his truck
Typical Tin City structure
Next stop was Sans Liege where we did a tasting and were impressed with their wines even before we met the owner/wine-maker.
He brought us back to where he was working his magic and showed us around. Here is a "pump-over". During fermentation the juice is pumped from the bottom over top of the grapes to help keep the process going.
This is us with the afore-mentioned owner/winemaker, Curt Schalchlin, a nice guy and excellent wine-maker
Curt is also the winemaker for Fableist
All the bottles at Fableist are priced at $20 and each bottling and label have something to do with one of Aesops Fables
I guess Aesop wrote a ton of fables because, for instance, this Pinot, refers to fable #774!
Our last tasting of the day and the week was at Levo.
We had a good time at Tin City. If you go, note that many of the tasting rooms are by appointment only.
It was a great week and we're going back in the Spring!
