Central Coastin’ – Day 3

After our big day out on the road watching the riders and visiting with Megan and Kristen, we crashed out pretty hard, and we woke up early the next morning, ready to start the day.  We showered and packed up the truck, checking out of the Avila Village Inn after having enjoyed our stay.  It was back to the Kraken for coffee and chai, and then it was a short drive along the coast to breakfast at Fat Cat’s Café.  According to the waitress who seated us, our beverages were “contraband” (apparently a thing all around here), but she was happy to seat and serve us anyway.  We enjoyed a round of big breakfasts (French toast for Chris, biscuits and gravy for me, eggs and bacon for both of us), and it was back into the truck to head north to Paso Robles.

Chris in our booth at Fat Cats.

They have art and photos from all over,

all with rotund felines as the subject.

They stick to a theme.

Paso’s not that far away from the Avila area – around 45 minutes – and we didn’t want to miss the opportunity to taste more outstanding wine and eat at our favorite restaurant on our trip two years ago to the area, Thomas Hill Organics.  We had a noon reservation for lunch, so we headed out of the hotel early and even with a stop for gas along the way, had to kill some time taking pictures of the local scenery while we waited for our first wine stop, Adelaida, to open.

Another day, another panoramic shot of gorgeous scenery

Adelaida was a neat place; we’ve never been there before, but it was in the right location, and it was highly rated on Yelp, so we figured we’d give it a shot (there are something like 300 vineyards in this general area, so it's hardly ever a problem to find one - Yelp helps narrow down the better ones).  The property was lovely, and since they were repaving the main road to the tasting room that morning, we got to come in through the back entrance and wander along the vines and past the barns on the property (score a point for driving the truck).  Our tasting guide told us all about the property, and after some discussion, we ended up joining the wine club here.  We’ve never been part of a wine club before (well, we were gifted a great one by Dad a few years back, but we'd never paid to join one), as most wineries lock you into a three or six bottle shipment every three months, and you just get sent whatever they have around at the time.  Instead, Adelaida does a twice a year shipment of six wines, but before they ship them to you, you get an email allowing you to select which wines you’d like.  That means you can go with what the winery director recommends or you can choose your bottles based on your particular tastes, what you need to flesh out your wine fridge (as mentioned in the Day 2 post, we have a LOT of pinot right now), or even pick based on price point.  While we’re locked into at least two shipments, the first won’t occur until October, which is probably when we’ll finally be done with all the wine we purchased on this trip (maybe).  After settling things with the club, we picked up two bottles to take home right away, a picpoul blanc (a new one for us) and a zinfandel. 

Tasting at Adelaida.

As members of the wine club,

we get free tastings in the room,

discounts on bottles,

AND a free tour around the property 

on the back of an ATV while we drink wine.

Um, score.

After Adelaida, we headed to our next stop, Opolo Vineyards.  Lots of folks described Opolo as “fun,” and its huge patio with makings for brick oven pizza definitely reinforced this.  They weren’t our favorite winery overall, as we found many of their selections to be just okay, not as stunning as some of the other places we’ve visited in the past.  Even with all of this, we managed to take home two of their bottles, a montagna-mare (a good red Italian wine) and another chardonnay.

At Opolo.

Once we were done with Opolo, we moved on down the road to our final stop for the day, Calcareous.  We first visited Calcareous on a trip to Paso with Dad and Risa the weekend we drove Chris up to get settled for the previously mentioned internship in Bakersfield (several years back), and we’ve really liked their wines ever since.  Although our tasting guide wasn’t our favorite one on the trip, he still poured us some delicious offerings, and we had to grab some to take home: a chardonnay (apparently, after pinots, we have plenty of chardonnay in the wine fridge), a zinfandel, and a syrah blend.  We spent a few moments admiring the view from the top of the hill, and we wished Calcareous adieu, ready to head into town for lunch.

Our haul at Calcaerous with the scenery.

Their hilltop patio

Enjoying the glorious weather.

I don’t know that we took any shots in downtown Paso on this trip, but we thoroughly enjoyed our lunch at Thomas Hill Organics once again.  We started with an appetizer of beets with goat cheese, which was delicious, and Chris again chose the pork belly sandwich.  For my part, I went with the goat cheese sandwich, which came on toasted, grainy bread and was topped with strawberries and pistachios drizzled with balsamic vinegar.  It was awesome, albeit on the sweet side, so it served me well as dessert, too.  We stopped for a shot of caffeine at a local coffee shop, and then it was back on the road, heading home.

From this point, it would normally take us about 4 ½ hours to get back to Long Beach, but since we left Paso around 1 and stopped a few times (for a bathroom break somewhere along the 101 and at the outlet mall in Camarillo), we ended up hitting the northern part of LA right at rush hour.  Awesome.  Although we were in the carpool lane, we didn’t open the door of the house until right around 7pm, taking around 6 hours total.  We were more than ready to be out of the truck by the time we made it home.

49 miles in two hours?

Sounds about right.

Hooray, LA.

We greeted the kiddo, ordered some pizza for delivery for dinner, and unpacked the stash we’d scored on our trip.

That's a lotta wine

(with two beers in there from Firestone Walker)!

All in all, a great trip!

Later!

Amy