The Wine Wrangler has a page on PasoRoblesWine.com. Please visit their page here.

Our Wine Bus

Background Story

Yannis of Yanni’s Bistro & Cellars, a great dining place in Poway/Scripps Ranch, also a good friend and client took us to an restaurant industry event on board a Celebrity Cruise Ship that was in port. While on board we dined with Chris who owns the Wine Vault & Bistro on India Street next to El Indio. I had never been there but I joined his email list and started seeing the exciting wine pairing menus that he puts on. We then received an email about a group of upcoming Wine Bus tours to the Paso Robles area. This was a trip that we had to go on.

The night before we left we found out that our good friends of many, many years were also on the bus. We don’t get to see each other often enough so having them as travel companions will make the trip more memorable.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Chris and his wife, Mary had put together a great itinerary. They had done some reconnaissance trips to Paso Robles (tough job but they “took one for the team”) to set this up and make sure that everyone had a great time. They planned this for crush season where we would have the opportunity to see the grapes coming into the winery and be part of the wine-making process. This is a very special time to see the wineries in action.

We arrived Sunday morning at 8:00 at the restaurant and enjoyed Bloody Mary’s and Screwdriver’s. The bus showed up right on time and we about 34 of us piled on for the drive north. Eric from Sun Diego Charter was the driver. Issac, the Love Boat Bartender, was played by Keith. Keith was assigned to the back of the bus and it became immediately clear that we were all in trouble. Laughter and cocktails started to flow. It seems that they had brought Gatorade bottles full of the pre-made cocktail juice. The party was on!

I woke up somewhere north of Thousand Oaks… Our first stop was The Cliff House Inn just north of Ventura – Every person brought a bottle of wine to share with the rest of the group. It was really fun passing the 35-ish bottles of wine from table-to-table. White, Red, Blush, Sparkling, Champagne, we had it all. We ate in the Inn at the Shoals Restaurant. This is a great stop if you are passing by. It is right on the ocean!

Well, it seems like we did not finish all of the wine and it was packed up and put in Keith’s possession for unsafe-keeping. We apparently had made excellent time getting through Los Angeles and Chris decided that we could have a bonus stop. There is the greatest tavern in the hills above Santa Barbara called Cold Spring Tavern. The Tavern is located in the San Marcos Pass on Highway 154 near Lake Cachuma.

Cold Spring Tavern

When we arrived Tom Ball and Kenny Sultan were playing music out front.We were able to stay for about 3 songs.

Tom Ball and Kenny Sultan

Here are a couple of (shaky) home-made videos:

We then continued our trip up to our Home Base, the Paso Robles Inn. This is a fabulous place to stay. I have written about it before here. We cleaned up and then got back on the bus and headed to dinner.

Dinner was at Tobin James Winery. Mary and I have known the co-owners, Lance and Clair Silver for many, many years and we were excited to get to spend the evening with them. Lance had arranged for their chef, Chef Erik to prepare a great meal for us. Tobin James has a large wood-fired pizza oven and Lance and Chef Erik put together some gourmet, thin crust pizzas. I think everyone had a great time. We poured into the bus and headed back to the Inn for the night. Mary and I had upgraded to a suite with a mineral hot springs spa on the patio. We managed to take a spa before heading to bed.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Monday morning arrived way too early and we headed down to the Coffee Shop for breakfast. At 9:00 A.M. it was time to get back on the bus. Surprisingly, everyone was perky and ready for a new day. The first stop today is the Halter Ranch. This is a 3,000 acre ranch that produces some incredible grapes. We were met by Jim Witt who walked us around the property. We started in the old barn where different varieties of grapes were drying on the floor on beds of hay. These will be turned into their delicious dessert wine.

Halter Ranch – Next Year’s Dessert Wines

Jim then showed us the new winery that is being built. It will be a gravity flow winery where you put grapes in at the top and they flow downhill without pumps throughout the winemaking process.

Halter Ranch’s New Winery

We continued our walk down the old airplane runway and Jim turned us over to Mitch Wyss. Mitch is the winegrower, he was very fun to listen to as he explained the process of getting the grapes from the field to the winery or to the customers that buy their grapes.

Mitch Wyss – Halter Ranch

We then headed down to the tasting room next to the Victorian Farmhouse. Here we tasted a wide selection of their wine offerings. This is a great stop in the Paso area.

The Patio at Halter Ranch

Next up was a short ride to the Villa Creek property where we met Chris and JoAnn Cherry. They also have a restaurant in town on the square called Villa Creek where we will be dining tonight. Chris did an excellent job of teaching us about the way he crafts his wines. We were able to ‘punch down’ some grapes in a barrel. Chris had a selection of gourmet cheeses and crackers for us to have while we tasted his hand-made wines. Chris and JoAnn showed us a very nice time and we are really looking forward to dinner tonight. We also got to visit with their winery cat and 2 dogs. The cat would let anybody pet it and the dogs were cheese and cracker lovers. They were obviously packing on some fat to get them through the Winter.

The next stop was the property at Luna Matta where we were met by Stephy Terrizzi of Giornata Wines.

Luna Matta – View from the Top

Stephy and her husband Brian put together some incredible Cal-Italian wines, my favorite. Giornata is another example of Youth in Action in Paso Robles. Stephy is quite young, in wine years, to be as good as she is.  She took us on a Billy goat hike up the side of the mountain as we toured the Luna Matta property. This is a very rustic vineyard with varying terrain. Chris from Villa Creek arranged for his chef, Tom Fundaro put on a fabulous BBQ. We sat on tree stumps and plastic chairs and had some of the best Cal-Italian wines and awesome food.

We were not done yet! The next stop is as different as you can get. This property is Denner Vineyards. Here is a very nice drawing of the building The Denner Perspective. We were hosted in the private tasting room by Ron Denner.

Ron Denner – One Cool Dude

Ron has built an incredible facility. Denner produces wine and also hosts other producers who make their wine in his facility. Ron told us about his fascinating life’s story and then turned the presentation over to his winemaker Anthony Yount. Up walks this kid, an amazing, young winemaker.

Once he started speaking it was apparent that he knows about winemaking. Anthony walked us through his wines explaining what was involved in creating them. I don’t think any of the women heard a word he said. They were all just smiling at him.

When we were finished tasting the Denner offerings we were introduced to the folks from Epoch Estate Wines. Epoch has taken a keen interest in Paso Robles history. They have purchased the original land of Ignacy Jan Paderewski Paso Robles’ most famous resident. They have replanted his original vineyard. Epoch has also purchased York Mountain Winery. York Mountain Winery has produced grapes since 1882. It has its own appellation in the mountains to the West of Paso Robles on the way to Cambria. Epoch obtained the winery in July of 2010 when it was being liquidated. It is great to see Epoch continuing the great history of the Paso Robles region.

Matt Hobbs, the General Manager of Epoch told us the Epoch story and then poured some of their incredible wine. Epoch tends to completely sell out very quickly so it was a real treat to be able to taste them. Near the end of the presentation Matt introduced us to Jordan Fiorentini their winemaker. She was crushing wine at the Denner facility and popped in for a visit. Jordan has quite the resume, Master’s, Chalk Hill and Araujo Estate in Napa, and Antinori Winery in Firenze, Italy. She is yet another young winemaker. It seems to me that youth, innovation, and new ideas are taking over the industry. So far, if Denner and Epoch are any indicator, it is a huge success!

OK, back to the Inn to rest up for dinner. Dinner was at Chris Cherry’s Villa Creek Restaurant. This is just a short walk diagonally through the Town Square. Once here we had cocktails in the saloon then we were escorted to the private dining room for a winemaker’s dinner. He expertly matched some incredible wine with his meals. We all had a great time and a great meal. Slowly people started heading back across the town square to the Paso Robles Inn to get some rest and prepare for our third and final day.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

It is Tuesday morning and everyone is perky and on time! Mary and I had found a local bakery called Mora’s Bakery & Café on Park Street in downtown Paso. What a find! This is a great place for breakfast, lunch or just to stop in and get some good bakery items. We had breakfast and bought some baked goods for the trip home.

We all got on the bus and headed to our next stop, Sextant Winery . Here we were greeted by the owners, Craig and Nancy Stoller.

Grafting root stock with Craig Stoller – Sextant Wines

We were treated to a vineyard tour & grape tasting, goat petting, and the opportunity to graft our own root-stock that we were able to take with us to plant our own vines. Just in case we screwed it up, Craig also gave each of us a small plant that was about 2 feet high. It was very interesting hearing him talk about the functions of the root versus the vine.

The site of the future Sextant Winery behind Craig Stoller

There is a townsite behind Sextant called Old Edna. This is a two-acre privately-owned ‘town’ that has country-style accommodations. The entire farmhouse is rented to one group at a time. It has three bedrooms, a totally equipped farmhouse kitchen and is furnished in a very elegant fashion.

Sextant also has an incredible deli where the Stoller’s did a wine and food pairing. To me, this was the highlight of the trip. To Mary, this was her opportunity to break the pact that we were not going to join any more wine clubs.Craig and Nancy and their team made us feel right at home and presented some great wines along with perfectly prepared food.

We loaded our wine and vines on the bus and hit the road South. Our next, and last, stop is back to the Cold Spring Tavern where we will have lunch and a wine tasting.

At Cold Spring Tavern we were met by the folks form Margerum Wine Company. They poured some of their hand-crafted wine. They served, Sauvignon Blanc, an M5 Rhone Blend, and ÜBER Syrah. These were all excellent wines. They had been crushing earlier and brought us some crushing remains to feel and also a bottle of freshly-pressed juice to taste. The Cold Spring Tavern did a great job of squeezing us into the tavern since it was raining and we all had a great lunch.

After lunch we toured the (wet) grounds and then headed back to the bus to head home. We had a beautiful trip down the mountain into Santa Barbara. The weather was clearing and the view to the ocean was breathtaking! Once we got back on the freeway I heard the clinking of wine bottles along with Keith’s incredible laugh and I knew the trip home was NOT going to be a quite ride.

This is the way to travel! We had no transportation worries. We usually drive to Paso and by the time we arrive I am exhausted from driving. This time we arrived in full Party-On mode! Eric was an awesome driver. He made it through some treacherous weather and roads. All we had to do was to wake up for a little while to eat or taste wine. I don’t know how he did it but Eric had us back at The Wine Vault and Bistro 30 minutes early. This was a most enjoyable trip and I recommend it to everybody who would like to visit the Paso Robles region. You should join Chris’ email list here to keep an eye on future trips. I think he is planning another trip up to Northern California next.

Mary and I would also like to thank Chris for providing us with special meals. We are Pescatarians (fish eating vegetarians) and he pre-arragnged alternative food for us at all of the stops. He also can provide you pescatarian/vegetarian options at his wine events. Thanks Chris!

We drove the long way through the hills to Paso. We were trying to find the French Camp Vineyards but it was hiding from us. We did get to drive through some incredible twisty bits of road as we snuck into Paso from the Southeast. We have an appointment with Barr Estate Vineyards but had time to head into town for lunch. We found a great little deli on the city square in downtown Paso. The place is called the Red Scooter Deli on Pine Street http://www.redscooterdeli.com/ – The actually have a little red scooter out front. The dudes working there were typically friendly and made a great sandwich.

The train ride was great. We went with the business class. We shared a 4 person seat with a Mom and her Son. He is going to UC Santa Barbara and they were going up for orientation. We had a great time.

The train follows the coastline for much of the trip. At times it sails along right on the beach! This is a very relaxing way to start a vacation.

I was able to catch up on podcasts, TV shows, and eBooks on my MacBook.

In San Luis Obispo we stayed at the Embassy Suites. We called and a driver came to the train station and picked us up. We tried to give him a tip but he refused. Wow!

We had dinner in the Green house Grill & Cafe at the hotel. What a treat! We expected just regular hotel food and drink. We got a great bottle of Tobin James Zinfandel. They had the very best garlic hummus and grilled pita bread. Mary had a perfect caprese salad and I had a salad with Stilton and Brie cheese with apples and cranberries. There was a cheese croquette the size of a huge meatball. The croquette had Stilton, Brie, and cranberries in it. It was an incredible meal. The server, Howard was the best. We really did not expect this level of excellence. What a great start to our vacation!

We are in a very nice 2-room suite. We pick up our rental car in the morning and start our quest.

A Day in the Life of Tobin James

The Paso Robles wine region is located halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco in the area known as the California Central Coastal region. Paso Robles is located approximately 20 miles from the Pacific Ocean. The Santa Lucia Mountain Range causes the climate to provide nearly perfect growing conditions. Paso Robles is known for its hot days and cool nights. The most prevalent varieties of grapes produced here are: Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Syrah and Merlot.

Spotlight Winery

D’Anbino Vineyards & Cellars is family-owned
and operated and proud to be part of the beautiful
Paso Robles Wine Region of California.

We grow premium grapes for wineries producing premium
wines… and there always seems to be a little
left over for making :The Family Wine!”

We took our 2001 vintage of “The Family Wine” public
in 2003 and we joyfully invite you to taste the
fruit of our labor.

Our mission is to produce small lots of site-specific,
hand-crafted, premium-quality wines.

Visit D’Anbino.com