If you've never gone wine tasting then you have never taken the opportunity to unleash the pretentious asshole that lurks inside each one of us. It's truly amazing how quickly the transformation takes place. I'm kind of surprised no one has done a sociological experiment with some Bubba from a truck stop plopped into a tasting room and timed how quickly he goes from "that's some tasty grape juice" to "this Mourvedre is an assault on the senses." I always try to keep this in the back of my mind whenever the Lovely Girlfriend and I go tasting. I'd rather be the meathead mispronouncing the names instead of the preppy in a Brooks Brothers sweater slipping into a faux French, Spanish or Italian accent. There is no need to go all Ricardo Montalban on the room when asking to re-visit the Tempranillo.
As a general rule the Lovely Girlfriend and I like to visit wineries that aren't perpetually indulging in the verbal masturbation of how smart they are. You can almost always nail these places the moment you walk in. The tasting rooms come across as galaxtically self-important. As if you'd need to be sponsored by a member in good standing then a vote by committee before they'd take your tasting fee. We tend to do the walk-in/walk-out on those spots. Whenever possible I like to try and drop some noxious gas before exiting so they know a proud member of the unwashed masses has been there.
With all this in mind, I will now roll out my multi-part Wine Tasting/Thanksgiving Road Trip review. We took the Sunday before Thanksgiving week to drive up to Paso Robles and hit some wineries then the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving to bounce around the Central Coast and hit some more. Here's my completely unsophisticated gulp by gulp review.
November 20th
10am - We wake up a little hung-over from the Cancer Party the night before and hit the road to Paso. After a few moments of spirited debate we choose to drive the 101 all the way up rather than the barren wasteland that makes up the 5. When I say debate what I really mean is I was driving and in spite of my Lovely Girlfriends protestations I simply took the 101 exit from the 405 and trusted that she wasn't going to grab the wheel. I've learned a number of life-lessons from my Dearly Departed Dad, always take the scenic route is one of his best.
1:30 - We need to make a pit-stop and what better place to go but a rest stop that doubles as a tasting room. We hit Costa de Oro in Santa Maria mostly because it was there and we felt like it was time to start tasting. Conveniently located right off the highway and near a gas station for all your tasting/traveling needs. Tasty Pinot, friendly pour-er plus a fair amount of snacks to purchase for the road. It was like an AM/PM with a wine bar. I'm sure that's not what they were going for but it works. We picked up two bottles for Thanksgiving Week.
2:15 - We officially make it to our first real winery of the trip, Wild Horse Vineyards. The Lovely Girlfriend is thrilled because she was there just a month or so ago and loved the place. Only when we pulled in she realized it was not the same place she was thinking of. We went in anyway because, hell, they've got wine in there and we had a complimentary tasting coupon. What the coupon didn't say is "Smug Attitude also complimentary." The guy behind the counter was Pure Asshole. We had our tasting and quickly left vowing to tell everyone we ran into today to avoid this place.
2:45 - We come across Anderson Road and pull into Eagle Castle. Imagine wine tasting in DisneyLand. Huge parking lot, fake castle, large crowds. We quickly moved on rather than fight the crowd around the bar and discovered that Anderson Road is chock full'o boutique vineyards. My favorites in order, Dark Star, Midnight, Brian Benson, Caliza and Booker. At Dark Star each one of their red wines were blow your mind delicious, just amazing. A little pricey but if you want to splurge on a single bottle you will not go wrong here. The people working at Midnight were super friendly, their prices were reasonable and they're extremely generous with their pours. They also had a reasonable wine club and half-off on some cases. Great place all around. Brian Benson was solid but not nearly as good as his Dad's place, Dark Star. Seemed like they were trying awfully hard to be hip and it came across as such. Apparently the kid that owns the winery is into hot rods so they have a lot of rat rod-esque art on the walls. That's cool if you didn't have a winery given to you and it just comes across as Paris Hilton in a Mac Trucks hat if you did. Caliza was on the spendy side but they too handed out some generous pours as well as plenty of local inside tips where to eat/drink. Finally, Booker was far too over the top fashionable for me to enjoy the place. It reminded me of a Tapas joint that hands out the smallest possible plates for the largest possible prices all in the name of ambiance. Also, they only had three wines on their tasting menu for ten bucks?! That's unacceptable. Additionally, at every single one of these spots we told anyone that would listen that Wild Horse was a waste of time. Hey, Pissy Dude pouring wine at Wild Horse - be nice to people, you never know who's got a blog or is willing to let everyone know what a prick you are.
That pretty much filled our day so I will pick this back up with part two tomorrow. In the meantime - here's tonight's NFL pick.
SEATTLE +3 over Philly - I've got to believe that at this point the Eagles have completely given up on the season and Andy Reid. On top of that I'm a little amazed to report that it looks like the Seahawks are responding to Pete Carroll. One team on the way down, another on the way up (I'm stunned to say) so I'll take the points for the home dog.
As a general rule the Lovely Girlfriend and I like to visit wineries that aren't perpetually indulging in the verbal masturbation of how smart they are. You can almost always nail these places the moment you walk in. The tasting rooms come across as galaxtically self-important. As if you'd need to be sponsored by a member in good standing then a vote by committee before they'd take your tasting fee. We tend to do the walk-in/walk-out on those spots. Whenever possible I like to try and drop some noxious gas before exiting so they know a proud member of the unwashed masses has been there.
With all this in mind, I will now roll out my multi-part Wine Tasting/Thanksgiving Road Trip review. We took the Sunday before Thanksgiving week to drive up to Paso Robles and hit some wineries then the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving to bounce around the Central Coast and hit some more. Here's my completely unsophisticated gulp by gulp review.
November 20th
10am - We wake up a little hung-over from the Cancer Party the night before and hit the road to Paso. After a few moments of spirited debate we choose to drive the 101 all the way up rather than the barren wasteland that makes up the 5. When I say debate what I really mean is I was driving and in spite of my Lovely Girlfriends protestations I simply took the 101 exit from the 405 and trusted that she wasn't going to grab the wheel. I've learned a number of life-lessons from my Dearly Departed Dad, always take the scenic route is one of his best.
1:30 - We need to make a pit-stop and what better place to go but a rest stop that doubles as a tasting room. We hit Costa de Oro in Santa Maria mostly because it was there and we felt like it was time to start tasting. Conveniently located right off the highway and near a gas station for all your tasting/traveling needs. Tasty Pinot, friendly pour-er plus a fair amount of snacks to purchase for the road. It was like an AM/PM with a wine bar. I'm sure that's not what they were going for but it works. We picked up two bottles for Thanksgiving Week.
2:15 - We officially make it to our first real winery of the trip, Wild Horse Vineyards. The Lovely Girlfriend is thrilled because she was there just a month or so ago and loved the place. Only when we pulled in she realized it was not the same place she was thinking of. We went in anyway because, hell, they've got wine in there and we had a complimentary tasting coupon. What the coupon didn't say is "Smug Attitude also complimentary." The guy behind the counter was Pure Asshole. We had our tasting and quickly left vowing to tell everyone we ran into today to avoid this place.
2:45 - We come across Anderson Road and pull into Eagle Castle. Imagine wine tasting in DisneyLand. Huge parking lot, fake castle, large crowds. We quickly moved on rather than fight the crowd around the bar and discovered that Anderson Road is chock full'o boutique vineyards. My favorites in order, Dark Star, Midnight, Brian Benson, Caliza and Booker. At Dark Star each one of their red wines were blow your mind delicious, just amazing. A little pricey but if you want to splurge on a single bottle you will not go wrong here. The people working at Midnight were super friendly, their prices were reasonable and they're extremely generous with their pours. They also had a reasonable wine club and half-off on some cases. Great place all around. Brian Benson was solid but not nearly as good as his Dad's place, Dark Star. Seemed like they were trying awfully hard to be hip and it came across as such. Apparently the kid that owns the winery is into hot rods so they have a lot of rat rod-esque art on the walls. That's cool if you didn't have a winery given to you and it just comes across as Paris Hilton in a Mac Trucks hat if you did. Caliza was on the spendy side but they too handed out some generous pours as well as plenty of local inside tips where to eat/drink. Finally, Booker was far too over the top fashionable for me to enjoy the place. It reminded me of a Tapas joint that hands out the smallest possible plates for the largest possible prices all in the name of ambiance. Also, they only had three wines on their tasting menu for ten bucks?! That's unacceptable. Additionally, at every single one of these spots we told anyone that would listen that Wild Horse was a waste of time. Hey, Pissy Dude pouring wine at Wild Horse - be nice to people, you never know who's got a blog or is willing to let everyone know what a prick you are.
That pretty much filled our day so I will pick this back up with part two tomorrow. In the meantime - here's tonight's NFL pick.
SEATTLE +3 over Philly - I've got to believe that at this point the Eagles have completely given up on the season and Andy Reid. On top of that I'm a little amazed to report that it looks like the Seahawks are responding to Pete Carroll. One team on the way down, another on the way up (I'm stunned to say) so I'll take the points for the home dog.
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