Our first stop was an old favorite of ours, Castoro Cellars (Makers of "Dam Fine Wine") on North Bethel Road just off the 101 and 46 interchange. We have been frequenting this winery since finding out about their wonderful alcohol free grape juice about ten years ago. This time we only bought wine! 
The Castoro mascot...Second on the list was Red Soles Winery, a small, family 0wned business that has only been open since March of 2007. The owners, Randy and Cheryl Phillips, have been farming and outsourcing their grapes to large growers for years. They came up with the name Red Soles after the historic first barrel was crushed with their own feet, hence the red soles! One thing we learned on the trip was that 15 years ago there were approximately 12 wineries in the area...now there are over 200 with more under construction!
Small but efficient winery operation.
Cheryl poured our wine and gave us an overview of the winery.
Kenny had to taste the syrah grapes to check on ripeness! They were to be harvested on Monday (today).
I had to try a couple to see what Kenny was talking about. You can see from the cloud cover that the weather was very nice. It rained overnight but was very comfortable all day.
Part of our group enjoying the vineyards and beautiful oak trees on the property.
We had to have a picture of our dynamic group!
The next stop was Donati Family Vineyard. Matt Donati and father Ron moved their operations from Paicines to Paso Robles, but the grapes are still grown in Paicines.
We stopped at Jada Winery for a tasting of their wines with various cheeses and lunch on the veranda. It was a combination of great wine, food, and a relaxing view!
After lunch we headed for Opolo Vineyards, one of the newest wineries in the area. It is owned by two families and the name Opolo comes from one of the owners Yugoslavian heritage. Very good wines!
Lastly, we visited Adelaida Cellars for our final tasting of the day, in their barrel room. They have produced several current wines with 90+ ratings by Parker.
The trolley returned us to the Adelaide Inn and in a couple of hours we all met at Ristorante da Gaetano, which is a Sicilian restaurant on Spring Street in Paso Robles. Since many in our group are of the same heritage we received wonderful service from Gaetano and his staff and the food was wonderful. It is in a converted home so the ambiance was warm and cozy. We celebrated three birthdays of members in our group!
On Sunday we went to McClintock's for breakfast. Who knew it would take two hours because a couple of cooks and several wait staff called in sick. However, we did make our 12 noon appointment at Summerwood Winery. After tasting a few wines, the winemaker (Chris Cameron) arrived to take us on a tour and do some barrel tasting. He is from Australia and has been at the winery a little over a year. He imparted some of his knowledge about winemaking through our tasting of wine in different stages of development.
We returned to the tasting room to finish up, with Stephanie pouring the rest of the wines on the list.
We left Paso around 2pm on Sunday after a wonderful, well-planned trip. When is the next one?
No comments:
Post a Comment