Paso Robles and Pismo Beach

Last week, Ted’s brother Steve invited Ted and me to go wine tasting in Paso Robles, which is about 3 1/2 to 4 hours southwest of us. He had won a wine tasting package at a charity auction, which included 3 tastings and a hotel stay. Nice! We started out early on Tuesday morning, spent the night there, and came home on Wednesday afternoon.

We started out at Bon Niche, a tiny winery in the nearby town of San Miguel. The winery is owned and run by a woman with help from her parents, who come down a couple of times a year to help out from their home in Washington State. It’s so tiny, they don’t have a fancy tasting room, just a little table with chairs looking out over the vineyards. It was a beautiful day, so this was perfect for us. The owner was away when we arrived, so her father got us set up and poured us some wine. It was relaxing after the long drive, and lovely to sit and taste in the shade. The picture above is of a blush (a Malbec rose, I had never seen that before) we were tasting on the left, and the grapes that were crushed just the day before, ready to be made into delicious wine. I’m not a big rose fan, but this was lovely.

After that, we went and checked into our hotel, the Allegretto Vineyard Resort. The picture above is the view from our bedroom. This is a beautiful hotel, with lovely rooms, and lovely art. As it is a vineyard and hotel, the tasting was on site. Very low key, and we had some charcuterie as well, which was good because we were pretty hungry.

From there we drove about 45 minutes further, to Pismo Beach. We had a lovely dinner there, the picture of the sun getting ready to set at the top of the post is from the restaurant.

I used to think Pismo Beach was a fictional location, based on Bugs Bunny.

We had dinner at the Vista Steak and Seafood restaurant, which I highly recommend if you are ever in the area and want a nice meal with a beautiful view of the ocean. Ted had a pork chop, which Steve said was probably the best pork chop he had ever had (it was indeed delicious), Steve had a house made pasta with shrimp and crab meat, and I had the striped sea bass. Everything was really good. After that, we walked around the pier a bit and enjoyed the ocean sights and sounds, though it was dark by now. Then back to the hotel, where we could have sat outside by a fire pit and relaxed, but we were tired from a long day of driving and wine tasting, so we went to bed.

Wednesday we had breakfast in the hotel restaurant (tasty!) and then went out for more wine tasting, because nothing says ‘time for wine’ better than an 11am appointment. This tasting room was not on a vineyard, but was close to the train station, in an old almond processing warehouse. Derby Wine Estates is still a small, family owned winery, but was bigger and more polished than the other two places. We had a great wine tasting, almost 2 hours, learning about the history of the building and the family business, and enjoying delicious cheeses along with our wines.

Maya has been a vegetarian (pescatarian really, though she doesn’t eat a lot of fish), and one meat that she misses is salami. We’ve been watching out for fake salami for quite awhile now, with very little luck. Handily enough, a week or so before our trip, I came across a Facebook ad for a store in Paso Robles called The Vremery, and they carry a vegan salami product. I bought some and brought it home for her. We tasted it, and it’s pretty good. I’m not sure I would eat it straight, but in a sandwich it’s really good, and that’s how she wanted to eat it anyway. I was happy to learn that the company (Prime Roots) is actually much closer than Paso Robles, and can be purchased at several stores in Berkeley.

Steve decided it would be fun to rent an electric car for our trip, and that was a new experience for us. Ideally, I think an electric vehicle is best for short drives, because we definitely did experience some range anxiety when watching the available energy on the dashboard. It’s not that we couldn’t find a place to stop, there were plenty, it’s that they are not big and obvious like a gas station, they are in parking lots, and they take awhile. Ideally, you would be ready for a meal and have an appropriate restaurant nearby, because it takes a lot longer than filling up with gas. We never managed that, so ended up hanging out in a parking lot for about 1/2 hour once on the way there, and once on the way back. The hotel also had a charger, so we were able to fully charge the car overnight. It did save us some money, though, as the gas stations were selling gas for about $6.50 a gallon, about a dollar more than here. (Though the other day I noticed that it is above $6 a gallon around here now too. The prices have gone up very quickly this last week.) Overall it was a fun getaway, to a part of California that I haven’t explored before. I’d like to go back and stay a bit longer, I think.