When we last left off the Lovely Girlfriend and I were braving the tough Scandinavian-esque Christmas Village of Solvang (the local street gang goes by The Evil Elves) looking for a parking space. Behind their chubby cheeks, broad smiles and windmills the Danes are a vicious bunch that would just as soon snap your neck as hug you but it's nearly impossible to resist their hugs because they are all so cuddly. Truth be told I know nothing of Danish stereotypes. I don't think they are interesting enough to deserve a stereotype. Anyway, we fought through the stop signs and foot traffic and found a parking spot on the outskirts of the downtown. We avoided the back-alley Danish thugs with their white herring and open faced sandwiches and made our way to our final destination - Sort This Out Cellars Tasting Room!
Two plus years ago, the Lovely Girlfriend and I went on a wine tasting trip through the Santa Barbara area while she was up there for work. We found the original Sort This Out Cellars Tasting Room in a tiny strip mall in Beullton. My recollection is they were bookended by a couple of accountants offices but this did not keep them from being an extremely cool stopping point. They have since moved from that tiny strip mall to a sweet little spot in the heart of Solvang. I don't normally go for the whole "Vegas Rat Pack" thing as most places try too hard and instead it becomes some kind of sad Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin as done by female impersonators routine. Sort This Out does not have this problem. Somehow they nailed it. The tasting room was damn near packed when we got there. We were lucky enough to grab the last bit of bar space before an large wave of foot traffic filled the tables along the wall and then the whole room. I've been to several dozen wineries of the last couple years and I don't think I've ever seen a tasting room as hopping as this one.
Sort This Out has a couple of different categories of wine that they make with labels to match. Their Black Label collection is a tribute to gambling with the wines named after gambling terms. Their Viva Las Vegas line is a tribute to 50's and 60's Vegas advertising. The Suited line comes complete with pin-up girl art, we got a bottle of their holiday merlot with mulling spices for Gourmet Biker and Dead Red. Finally they have VinoNostra, a tribute to the California winemakers that survived Prohibition by going underground. We tasted at least one from each and they were all exceptional. The VinoNostra "Bootlegger" was out of this world. An Oh My Gosh Grenache absolutely killed. They had their Suited Holiday Merlot mulled wine cooking in the back and were nice enough to hand out seconds and thirds on it. The ladies pouring the wine behind the bar were fantastic plus they threw in a "Congrats on beating cancer" bottle of their Viva Las Vegas Merlot with our purchase. I really can't say enough things about this place. We joined the wine club, an incredibly reasonable seventy bucks four times a year with as many as six bottles in a shipment. Sort This Out is now on our must stop list whenever we are headed up to San Francisco.
After at least two hours tasting and chatting we reluctantly said our good-byes and stepped back out into the rough and tumble Hans Christian Anderson style streets of Solvang. We hustled past the cutthroat Coo-Coo-Clock stores and bad to the bone bakeries to the safety of our car. Vowing to return and hoping that one day the picturesque town of Solvang cleans up it streets of the Danish riff-raff of Rolf's and Rasmus's. Allowing God Fearing American's to roam Santa's Shantytown streets without being harangued by pickled gherkin peddlers promising you a quick fix. The first ones always free. Seriously, are there any Danish stereotypes out there? Throw me a bone here.
NFL Thursday Night
ATLANTA -12 over Jacksonville - Atlanta needs this to stay in the thick of things in the NFC playoff picture. Jacksonville, despite their destruction of Tampa last Sunday, is terrible.
Two plus years ago, the Lovely Girlfriend and I went on a wine tasting trip through the Santa Barbara area while she was up there for work. We found the original Sort This Out Cellars Tasting Room in a tiny strip mall in Beullton. My recollection is they were bookended by a couple of accountants offices but this did not keep them from being an extremely cool stopping point. They have since moved from that tiny strip mall to a sweet little spot in the heart of Solvang. I don't normally go for the whole "Vegas Rat Pack" thing as most places try too hard and instead it becomes some kind of sad Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin as done by female impersonators routine. Sort This Out does not have this problem. Somehow they nailed it. The tasting room was damn near packed when we got there. We were lucky enough to grab the last bit of bar space before an large wave of foot traffic filled the tables along the wall and then the whole room. I've been to several dozen wineries of the last couple years and I don't think I've ever seen a tasting room as hopping as this one.
Sort This Out has a couple of different categories of wine that they make with labels to match. Their Black Label collection is a tribute to gambling with the wines named after gambling terms. Their Viva Las Vegas line is a tribute to 50's and 60's Vegas advertising. The Suited line comes complete with pin-up girl art, we got a bottle of their holiday merlot with mulling spices for Gourmet Biker and Dead Red. Finally they have VinoNostra, a tribute to the California winemakers that survived Prohibition by going underground. We tasted at least one from each and they were all exceptional. The VinoNostra "Bootlegger" was out of this world. An Oh My Gosh Grenache absolutely killed. They had their Suited Holiday Merlot mulled wine cooking in the back and were nice enough to hand out seconds and thirds on it. The ladies pouring the wine behind the bar were fantastic plus they threw in a "Congrats on beating cancer" bottle of their Viva Las Vegas Merlot with our purchase. I really can't say enough things about this place. We joined the wine club, an incredibly reasonable seventy bucks four times a year with as many as six bottles in a shipment. Sort This Out is now on our must stop list whenever we are headed up to San Francisco.
After at least two hours tasting and chatting we reluctantly said our good-byes and stepped back out into the rough and tumble Hans Christian Anderson style streets of Solvang. We hustled past the cutthroat Coo-Coo-Clock stores and bad to the bone bakeries to the safety of our car. Vowing to return and hoping that one day the picturesque town of Solvang cleans up it streets of the Danish riff-raff of Rolf's and Rasmus's. Allowing God Fearing American's to roam Santa's Shantytown streets without being harangued by pickled gherkin peddlers promising you a quick fix. The first ones always free. Seriously, are there any Danish stereotypes out there? Throw me a bone here.
NFL Thursday Night
ATLANTA -12 over Jacksonville - Atlanta needs this to stay in the thick of things in the NFC playoff picture. Jacksonville, despite their destruction of Tampa last Sunday, is terrible.
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