Off in the trusty Avenger for our 10 am tasting: Treana. (Please remember: all addresses have been preprogrammed carefully). We blindly follow Tim's guidance into, what appeared to be some sort of local industrial park, complete with defunct space ships and other NASA paraphanalia and the Paso Robles Juvenile Detention Center. But no Treana. We do see a warehouse that holds some production facility-like equipment, but no sign, locks everywhere etc... Tim is also showing us to be trespassing on Federal Land, so we consulate our map, reroute to a different listing for Treama and take off, only to end up at the Kermit King Elementary School. So, no Treana.
We reroute and head to Turley, where we taste thru their single vineyards and even persuade the tasting room attendant to open a bottle of the White Coat, a mutual fav Rhone Style Blend.
After Turley, we head to Pasolivio for some olive oil samplings. They were not pressing currently, as it seems to all be done prior to December. But they did have some funky flavors and blends that were yummy!
Off to Sam's, where we meet friend Dennis and pile into the Sam's Toyota and are chauffered around Paso to tasting rooms and farmers land.
Terry Hougue Vineyards is literally down the street from Sam. Terry is a University of Georgia football alumni from the early 80's and the last National Championship (Melissa noticed a UGA book on a shelf penned by Vince Dooley and Mark Ritch and immediatley cracked the case.) It is small and quality production, and in no way related to Hogue Vineyards. (Melissa's fav: The Hedge Syrah...Go Dawgs!)
We also hit: L'aventure, Lone Madrone and Windward.
One of our highlights of this trip is a visit to a farmer (I suppose viticulturist may be more accurate) named Don. Don meets us at the bottom of a hill with 2 John Deere Gators, we pile in, and he escorts us around his vineyard to learn pruning techniques, which is a first for the 3 of us. Don's presence in our trip made us decide to focus more on the farming next year, and hopefully working with some farmers and viticulturists here and there.
After we taste around the town, and wave good bye to Dennis, Sam invites us in for "some wine while your Thai takeout is cooking". She rolls out to the patio with Kim's fav: The Peasant. We sip our wine, discuss farming techniques for the up and coming "Chloe's Vineyard" and enjoy our lives. Afterwards, we wave goodbye to Sam and Chloe, with promises to see her in Nantucket and us back in Paso soon!
Overdose on Thai food and watch Will Farrell play the charming role of Ricky Bobby before falling asleep on the chair.
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