Tuesday is NOT wine tasting day

October 18, 2011

Atascadero-Templeton-Paso Robles, California

I know I'm sounding like a broken record when I say that yesterday was a nice driving day, but it was, darn it!  For years, we'd rush from place to place, up early, drive all day, stop after dark.  In 2009, Bob and Rod schooled me in the art of traveling in the top half of the clock: on the road at 9:00 and parked by 3:00 in the afternoon.  This fall, we've taken that a step further: leave by 10:00 and stop by 2:00.  I'm liking it.

In any event, we had an easy drive from Salinas to Atascadero, US-101 all the way.  This is farming country, in a wide, flat valley from Gilroy (garlic) through Salinas (greens, spinach recalls notwithstanding) down to just north of Paso Robles, where the valley floor narrows, the hills begin to roll, and the vines start to reappear.

Today, I made a quick trip to Templeton to pick up mail at the Post Office.  We're waiting for a new Visa card that hasn't shown up yet.  In the afternoon, we decided to do some wine tasting.  I looked over the various brochures available, did some Wine Spectator research, and made a couple of winery picks.  As we get older and wiser (and as the various spots to store wine in the coach fill up), we get more selective.  I like to seek out wines that actually do well in a given place, and producers who've gained some degree of recognition for their quality products.  Too often in the past, we've tasted and even purchased wines and realized later that they weren't the best ones available in a given area.  In Paso Robles, the varieties that do best are from the Rhône region in France.  While predominantly Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, and other lesser-known grape varieties are growing in popularity.  So, we were off in search of Rhône blends (sometimes referred to as "GSM", Grenache-Syrah-Mourvedre).

Unfortunately, I didn't allow enough research time to actually drill down to individual winery web sites and literature.  If I had, I'd have realized that typical tasting room hours in the Paso Robles area run Thursday-Monday, maybe even Friday-Sunday.  Tuesday?  Not so much.  So, we struck out with a couple of small, highly-rated producers.  We'll save them for next time.  Instead, we made a return visit to Turley Winery and tasted some nice Zinfandel.  We'd stopped here last fall as well.  We enjoyed the tasting, and their new tasting room, and made a few select purchases for the Wine Box.

Heading home, we made a quick stop at the local Trader Joe's to pick up some produce (and some Two Buck Chuck, since it's actually $2 in California as opposed to $3 everywhere else).  Geri made a nice appetizer plate and I got out the grill to sear a Tri-Tip.  It was a cheater Tri-Tip, pre-seasoned from Costco, and it was way too spicy and salty for our tastes.  We won't do that again!