THE COCKTAIL HOUR - Paso Robles Beer Tasting

While the Paso Robles area is justifiably famous for its vineyards, wineries, and wine, one of America's most popular microbreweries resides here.  Firestone Walker, makers of the Double Barrel Ale (DBA) has a decent sized operation south of town.

They also have a restaurant to the south in Buellton, but we're just here to taste the beers.

Watch the Video!

Here at the brewery, they have a nice tasting room with 14 taps (just installed the day before we were here). For $6 you can taste 4 of their brews.

 

We taste the DBA, Solace...a wheat beer, a hefeweizen, a porter, a honey blonde, and IPA, and a red ale.  While we enjoyed the DBA, Solace, and the honey blonde, the rest were average to a bit heavy for us.

So we're kind of indifferent to Firestone Walker. The beers in Denver were much better as was Sierra Nevada up north in Chico, which also serves a vast variety of tastes at no charge...but wait...what's that across the street?

Watch the video above as we find a very nice ringer, right across the street from the FW premises.

Cheers!

-Darryl

THE COCKTAIL HOUR: Paso Robles Wine Tasting

(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed) We've done this before but time to hit a couple of new places.

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While California wine tasting used to be a fun, cheap way to pass some time on vacation, wineries have caught on and have made this a profit center. Cheap tasting is getting hard to find. Free tasting is on the endangered list and in extreme danger of going extinct.

Still, have faith...there are some bargains to be had out there yet.

A quick inquiry at the hotel's front desk yields us about half a dozen coupons for free wine tasting here in the Paso Robles AVA.  Two are local, and we'll taste a third under different circumstances tonight.

From our hotel in Atascadero, it's just a few miles south to Santa Margarita where the Ancient Peaks Winery's tasting room anchors the block-long downtown. A display inside has samples of the soil of their growing areas to the north and a map of each type of soil and the grapes grown on it.

Our coupon gets us tastes of everything on the list and we make up a mixed case (10% discount for non-members) of their great cabernet, Sauvignon blanc, and Blanco...a slightly sweeter dry white wine made up of a chardonnay/moscato mix...from the friendly, helpful, and down-to-earth counter staff. They also had a rose for this hot day but it was average and kind of paled a bit in comparison with the other wines.

Be sure to stop at the bakery next door for some sweets to go with that Blanco by the pool later.

Next, we go to the other side of Atascadero, to Templeton, where the rolling hills are dotted with quarter horse ranches. Here's where we'll find Wild Horse Winery. It's a name we're familiar with as we've had their readily available wines many times before.

It's a bit lonely here as we're the only customers. The friendly woman at the counter helps us out with our free tasting as I end up splurging on a really excellent chardonnay that I wasn't planning on spending that much for (but it was worth it). The other wines, such as their pinot noir and viognier, were on sale for such low price that I made up the price of the charonnay.

Later, at a concert in the park in downtown Paso Robles, we hit the wine bar where J. Lohr is selling bottles of their excellent wine for $20 a bottle, souvenir glasses included.

We enjoyed the concert with a chilled bottle of their Riesling to finish off our wine day in Paso Robles.

Cheers!

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2017 - All Rights Reserved

Paso Robles, California - Part 3

After a couple of days spent exploring the trails, the vineyard, wines, and entertainment of Paso Robles, our final day has us hitting the road.

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The Pacific Ocean is only 25 miles west via highway 46. Many interesting sights await at the coast. Upon hitting highway 1…a major destination in itself…a left turn takes you south to the classic beach towns of Cayucos and Morro Bay, and the tiny town of Harmony.  Turn right to the quaint village of Cambria and Hearst Castle perched high upon a local mountain.

We go beyond both of these northern landmarks to the beach at Piedras Blancas.

Four miles beyond Mr. Hearst’s estate, this stretch of rocky sand is home to a colony of formerly endangered elephant seals.  Now protected against molestation, the seals have made a nice comeback and live in a few colonies along the coast.

Large, fat, and lazy, the elephant seals seem to be content to lie on their bellies, flipping sand occasionally on their backs as a sort of natural sunscreen.  Now and again, a couple will flare up…barking at each other, butting heads, maybe even biting…but as soon as it starts, the animals seem to lose the strength to continue and flop back down on the sand, content to rest until another flash of energy enters into their blubber lined bodies.

The human spectators gather in the parking lot and along the top of the sand. A fence keeps the two species separated, allowing plenty of opportunities to spectate.

In the water, a few seals joust with each other bashing heads, barking loudly, and occasionally biting each other while the waves crash against them.

The animals are much bigger than the harbor seals of Morro Bay or the sea lions crowding around the local wharves, very similar looking to the manatees of the east coast.

Fat squirrels and aggressive sea birds fight for scraps of food from the visitors.  A seagull takes a nip at a squirrel and flies off with an inch of the rodent’s tail while the squirrel takes cover under a car.

As we return, we make a short stop in Cambria to shop and have a snack.

Back in Paso Robles, we take a little time to relax at the hotel and go for a swim.  Across the street from our base of operations, the Best Western Black Oak Inn, is the local fairgrounds.

Many of our fellow hotel guests are driving big pickup trucks, wearing Wranglers and cowboy boots, and walk with a swagger.  They’re competitor in a regional team roping competition going on across the street.

Letty and I, curious about this, walk over to the main gate of the fair and walk in.  There is nobody around, no signs, no ticket booths…not a soul in sight. We walk tentatively to the north end of the fairgrounds, waiting for the inevitable security guard demanding to know what we’re doing here, but nothing.  Nobody. Not a single luxury.

Eventually we hear a buzzer, follow the sound to a large shed, and find some activity.  We wander inside and find the team roping competition going full force.

It’s like going to one event in a rodeo. Team roping consists of a team of two riders on horseback. A calf is released who tries to run away. One rider attempts to lasso the horns while their partner tries to throw a loop around the hind legs. A special cap is worn by the calf to prevent injury and the animal is released as soon as it is caught.

Teams compete for the best time with penalties assessed for sloppy roping. If either team member misses, no time is given.

It’s fun and exciting for a little while.  After watching the same activity time and time again for 45 minutes, it gets a little old so we take our leave, heading back to the gate where we entered.

Again, it’s back into the deserted grounds. We get to the gate…and it’s locked. We walk to the administration building. It’s locked and so is the gate next to it. Again and again, we walk along the perimeter fence. Every gate is locked. We can find no one.

At the end of the fairgrounds, there is one last gate. It is also locked but has a gap.  Letty can fit through but not the bigger dimensions of my body.

Uh oh…


(You can see our fairground adventure in the video above)

We walk waaay back to the other end of the fairgrounds where the roping is going on. The lady who seems to be in charge doesn’t know where we should go except to try to go out where the trucks go in.

It’s quite a walk, but we find the access road and eventually find our way out and then walk about another mile to get back to our hotel.

With our escape , we call it a day and in the morning high tail it back home…Tim’s camp called.  He’s sick and they need us to come pick him up right away.

Paso Robles now just a quickly fading memory in our rear view mirror as we speed to the San Bernardino Mountains, we say goodbye and face up to getting our son better.

The epilogue? Tim is sick but not real bad. We have a couple of frazzled days of caregiving getting him back up to health but he’s fine and we can all look back at it with a smile now.

-Darryl

Copyright 2011

Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

THE COCKTAIL HOUR - Paso Robles Wine Tasting

This week, we take the Cocktail Hour out on the road again. This time it's to Paso Robles to taste some of the fine wines of this area.

Watch the Video!

We start off at Castoro Cellars...home of "Dam Fine Wine" (Castoro means beaver in Italian)...and try their late harvest zinfandel port along with some truffles.

Other stops included Eagle Crest Winery and Tobin James...but the star of the show with great wines at super low prices is a rather mundane local location.  All is revealed in the video above.

Cheers!


Darryl

Paso Robles, California - Part 2

Previously, we went hiking along the Salinas River in Part 1. Today, we'll find out just what makes Paso so famous...

Paso Robles is known for wine, so today we’ll concentrate our efforts towards that. First, it’s time for breakfast.

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Yesterday we had great pancakes at Springside Café, today, it’s chilaquiles, chorizo, and eggs at Joe’s Place. Formerly a Mexican restaurant called Lolo’s, now it’s a greasy spoon diner with a surly chef and a wisecracking waitress…at least that’s what the description on the menu says.  We never got to meet the cook and had a friendly server.

The food was great, now it’s time to work it off.  Letty goes for an early morning run through downtown while I go for a walk.

It’s nice to see a town in the morning by foot. You see so much more than you do just driving by. These two pit bulls kept a close eye on me as I walked by the store they were guarding.

I also walked around the fairgrounds and the Pioneer Museum.

Time to taste some wine.  We picked up some coupons from the front desk of our hotel, the Best Western Black Oak, and hit the road.

First, we went to the west side of town to a castle on the side of the road. This is Eagle Crest Winery in a custom built castle on top of a hill. (Ed - this is now the Rabble Winery)

It even has a moat.

I had seen a banner back at the fairgrounds for this winery where the fine print said they were selling mixed cases for $100.  If the wine’s good, that’s a bargain.  Other wineries in town had some cases on sale for $75 or $80 but just on certain varieties.

In the tasting room, I asked the server what the conditions were for the price.  Just pick any wine from the list, make up a case (12 bottles) any way you like…mix or match…and it’s $100.  Even for the $30 wines.

We tasted, we liked very much, we bought a case.  Nice winery, great wines, and good staff.

Just down the road, we visit Castoro Cellars.  Here we also taste some nice wines, but a bit overpriced.  Many of the same wines are on sale at the local Albertson’s for $7.

They do have some nice chocolate truffles, so we get a bottle of late harvest zinfandel port to have a little dessert picnic overlooking the vineyard.

Heading over to the east side of town, we go along the Union Road wine trail to Maloy O’Neill winery.  Here we taste some average red wines going for $26 and up.  Nice place, but just too expensive.

Our last stop was the Tobin James Winery at the eastern end of Union Road.  Decent wines, just a bit expensive but with a little impatient attitude at the tasting counter.

Summing up our quick tour, we liked Eagle Crest best, Castoro, and the east side wineries a little less.

If you'd like to see more of our wine tasting adventure, watch the video from this week's Cocktail Hour, below.

Watch the Paso Robles Wine Tasting video!

After a swim and nap break back at the hotel, we head over the city park in downtown.

It’s Friday, so we’re in time for the first concert in the park for the summer season. Tonight, local band Rhythm Method is playing in the gazebo while ribs, wine, and beer are sold off to the side.  Many other attendees bring their own picnics and drinks.

I go across the street to the Goodwill, buy a cheap picnic blanket, get some wine, beer, and food, and we settle in for the show.  Very nice and relaxing way to end the day.

Stay tuned for part three.

-Darryl

Copyright 2011 – Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

Paso Robles, California - Part 1

If there is one California bias I would admit to, it’s that my home state makes the best wine in the world. Yes, the French make a great product…so do the Italians, Australians, South Americans, and even a few other states…but the grapes of this state just taste so much better to me. If you doubt this, try a glass of J. Phelps Insignia - especially if you can get someone else to pay for it - and let me know.

The wine terrain of California ranges from cool to blisteringly hot, extremely well developed to almost non-existent, from a Disney-like atmosphere to a shack in some guy’s backyard but the vintners here almost all have a lot of passion for their work and put it all on the line and in the bottle.

Watch the Video!

Grazing around the wine chatter online and in print, a lot of talk about the next big “thing” in California wine is the Paso Robles area, sitting south of the Monterey wine country and just north of the San Luis Obispo area.  Mornings here are cool, with clouds and fog wandering over from the nearby Cayucos coast, turning hot and sunny in the afternoon.

The two main growing areas here are pretty neatly cleaved by the 101 freeway between the cooler west side vineyards and the sun drenched east side wineries.

With Tim away for another session at camp, Letty and I decide to head up here for a few days of wining, dining, hiking, and beaching.

The afternoon is aging fast as we cross the hills from McFarland, through the James Dean Memorial Junction, and then right to our hotel. This time, we’re staying at the Best Western Black Oak, just on the other side of the 101.

The hotel has a few accessible rooms with king or queen sized beds and your choice of roll-in or bathtub bathrooms. We’re here without Tim and the wheelchair, so we opt for a deluxe king size room on the second floor.  This room is different from the standard king room mainly because there is a recliner in the room.

It’s a nice room with a comfortable bed and includes such amenities as a refrigerator, coffee maker, microwave, hair dryer, flat-screen TV, wireless or hard-wired Internet, and a nice selection of toiletries. 

Outside is a nice pool area with a lot of plants and shady areas, a kids playground, a picnic area with barbecues, and a diner attached to the hotel. Guests can get a $5 coupon for Margie’s Diner at the front desk.

Since we’re celebrating my birthday also, the management thoughtfully left a bottle of champagne and a couple of glasses in the fridge.

In the morning, a drive over to Spring Street takes us to Springside Restaurant. In this converted old house, we sight by a bright window overlooking their flower garden. Breakfast is omelets and pancakes…Letty had spinach and cheese while I had linguisa and cheese. The pancakes were a perfect mix of slightly crunchy outer layer with a fluffy interior, covered with melted butter. It was delectable.

Tummies full, loaded with protein and carbs, we head over to Larry Moore Park. From here, trails wind over to the Salinas River in the shadow of the freeway. Today, the river is more of a creek with most of its water flowing underground. We hike across two dry channels before reaching the water where dozens of small frogs hop around.

We spend a few minutes playing catch and release with the amphibians before moving on. Back on the bank of the channel, we turn to bird watching and catch sight of a thrasher and a flycatcher. A few more trails lead into shady groves of trees with loads of wild anise growing underneath.

A few hundred calories and a couple of miles later, we’re back in the car heading off to the hotel.

Be sure to stay around for part two of our time in Paso Robles coming very soon.

-Darryl
Copyright 2011 – Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Wine, Women, and Song...Concert Day in Paso Robles

OK, well, it's one woman...my wife...plus a son but there will be wine and a song or two.

Thursday's in Paso Robles is Concert in Park days during the hot, summer season.  A time for everybody to come together for a community-wide happy hour in the downtown park.

That'll be later, first it's time to cash in some chips. As noted in the previous post, I had a coupon for free wine tasting at Ancient Peaks Winery in nearby Santa Margarita. My wife really liked their cabernet.

Actually, we had several coupons for wineries stretching for about a 3 mile radius, courtesy of the front desk at our hotel.  We decided just to try two.

Watch the Video!

While you can get more details in our companion Cocktail Hour post and video, I can tell you that along with the great wine at Ancient Peaks, there's a tiny little (and inexpensive) bakery in the same building where we picked up some brownies and cookies for later.

They were delicious.

On the other side of town, up in the hills full of quarter horse ranches, sits Wild Horse Winery.  It's lonely here, us being the only customers at the time, so we get the full attention tasting experience before getting a case of some great pinot noir and voignier on sale.

It's back to the hotel to take a swim in the 100 degree weather. The hotel has a pool lift, albeit at an awkward angle to the pool, that puts Tim in the water fairly easily.

As is typical in a lot of modern chain hotels, there's not a lot of shade around the pool and what little there is is already taken up by others.

We spend about an hour in the water before heading back up to the room for a quick afternoon nap before heading out for downtown Paso Robles. The plan is to get to downtown a little early (the concert starts at 6pm in the downtown park bandstand), get a good parking spot,  put our blanket down to hold a spot, find a restaurant nearby for an early dinner, then over to the park for the concert.

My wife smells garlic in the air. To her, this means pasta. Pasta is what she wants and pasta is all she'll accept. We wander along Pine Street, the park's eastern edge, where a half a dozen restaurants sit...not one among them with pasta on the menu.

Except one, Berry Hill Bistro. We go in, have one of their spectacular Millionaire Margaritas, and order pasta. Only thing is, it's too early for the dinner menu.

"The menu outside said nothing about it being a dinner menu," I tell my wife.  

She's not having it. We're a half an hour early for dinner. While Tim and I are happy with sandwiches, it won't do for her. I make a compromise. Tim and I will eat our sandwiches, then, I'll order the pasta to go for dinner and she can have a picnic in the park for the concert.

That's a deal she can live with. I tell the server what I intend to do, she tells the chef, and he relents and just makes the pasta now so we can all eat together.  

And that is how big tips are generated.

In the park, I thank our new friend, Tony, for letting us set our blanket next to his and for keeping an eye on it while we ate.  We make a few more friends as people file in for the concert.

A booth from J. Lohr winery sells bottles of very good wine for $20. I get a fine Riesling. They also give me four free souvenir glasses to drink it with.  You can also brink your own drinks from home, as many people do.

It's all a very relaxed atmosphere and all are here to have a good time.

The band strikes up...a jazzy, old school rock band...and we relax over wine and new friends as the sun sets on the music.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2017 - All Rights Reserved

Photos by Letty Musick
Copyright 2017 - All Rights Reserved

Hitting the Wall at the End of the Road on the Central Coast - Atascadero, California

My wife has given me one request for her birthday this year, that we not be at home.  Sure, we've been on trips on her birthday before but that day has always landed on a travel day so she got to spend it in airports, on trains, in a car...you get the picture.  This time, she wanted to be gone and able to relax.

After mulling over several destinations, it was decided that we'd go up to the Central Coast to the wine country of Paso Robles and the Edna Valley.

It's not a cheap place for hotels, especially in the peak summer travel time.  A very basic room at a Motel 6 would be edging up towards a hundred dollars a night, rooms in Pismo Beach were in the $300 - $500 range, Morro Bay around $200 - $300, Atascadero and Paso Robles were $150 - $400.

I settled on the Holiday Inn Express in Atascadero (just ten miles south of Paso Robles) for $190 a night because it seemed like they had a very nice, wheelchair accessible suite with a king bed and sofabed in the living room, hot breakfast, and a decent pool to swim in on those hot, wine country afternoons.

The drive up was pleasant enough with just a stop for breakfast at the Main Street Restaurant and Steakhouse in Ventura.  It's a very good diner with great food but this morning was hosting a party of clueless parents who let their kids climb on the table, run around the restaurant, and bang on windows. We couldn't wait to get back on the road...

Being summer in Southern California, the great ocean views to the left of us on the 101 were balanced out by the many wildfires burning to the right of us.

A bathroom and gas stop in Buellton lands us next to an old used car lot filled with some great, classic and antique cars.

About four hours later, we pull into the Holiday Inn Express in Atascadero for checkin.  After the paperwork is done and room keys issued, I send Letty and Tim ahead to the room while I collect some luggage from the car.

When I get to the room, Letty greets me at the door with "you'll never believe this. Come inside and look."

I go inside to a nice, rather large room (no way this is a two-room suite, like I booked, maybe a studio, at most) where my wife has pulled back the curtains to reveal the view of the rolling hills of the Paso Robles wine country going off into the distance.  At least that's what we expected. Instead, we get a view of a stucco wall, 3 feet away, completely blocking any view at all (it's part of the facade of the portico over the hotel's entrance).

"OK, lets go back down and see if they have another room," I tell her.

Marching back to the desk, we explain the dilemma. "That's the only wheelchair accessible suite we have," the clerk tells me. We have a regular room with one bed that is accessible."

I let her know that we will not be able to fit in that room and, since this room is not what I thought it would be and is obviously inferior to a non-accessible room, that they should have no problem if I go ahead and cancel, right?

"You need to cancel 24 hours in advance, you'll forfeit a night's room rate."

This is not good.  I know I could probably fight this and win later but I just want to give my wife a nice getaway for her birthday so, when they won't budge, we go ahead and stay in the room.

It's not a great room for sleeping, either, as we'd find out listening to the people upstairs walking around all night and the air conditioner cycling on and off repeatedly.

The next morning, we go to the breakfast buffet. It's not great. It's pretty bland and we decide after today, we'd rather spend extra and go eat out.

The manager spots me as we're getting ready to go out for the day.  "Mr. Musick, I see that you wanted to cancel yesterday but you needed 24 hours notice. If you'd like to cancel today at no charge, that would be fine."

I tell her that today is my wife's birthday. All she wanted was to be away from home and not dealing with the actual hassles of traveling and that the last thing I want to do on her birthday is to have to try to find another hotel on short notice in this expensive town and to move.

The manager says she'll knock off ten dollars a day for our troubles.

Well, at least I know where not to stay next time I come up here (you can see my review of the hotel at Tripadvisor).

At least that's the height of our displeasure on this trip. The rest of it will be pretty fun and relaxing...I promise.  See you next time.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2017 - All Rights Reserved

Photos by Letty Musick
Copyright 2017 - All Rights Reserved