(from-the-moving-car iPhone photo of some of the many miles of grapes around here)
Today we visited Tobin James Cellars. This winery is located 8 miles east of Paso Robles on Highway 46 and is a very cool winery with a fairly non-traditional, non-stuffy feel. They've got a fabulous antique mahogany bar from the 1860s in their tasting room and everyone was super friendly and fun. We bought two bottles of their 2007 Petite Syrah ("Bodacious" – a dark, inky fruit bomb), two bottles of 2008 Late Harvest Zinfandel "Liquid Love" (wish I could remember the full description of this, but it involved sharing it with someone special in front of a fire on the "love rug"), and two bottles of their sparkling.
Then we went to Trader Joe's and stocked up on a few things and saw a nearby shop called J&R Meats that looked interesting, so we went in and came out about a hundred bucks lighter. They have a great selection of grass fed local beef, pork, lamb, and house-made sausage, as well as some other local treats (sauces, cheeses, olive oils, etc.). We picked up some duck/blueberry sausage, buffalo/sweet apple sausage, some pork baby back ribs, two bison flat-iron steaks, as well as some local marinated goat cheese and couple of sauces to try. Fun!
Then we headed to one more winery for the day: Eberle Winery. Eberle is near where we're staying and is a beautiful vineyard. We brought home a 2010 Mill Road Viognier, the 2008 Steinbeck Vineyard Syrah, and the 2007 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. We got some cool tips for other wineries to check out, so we plan to stay another day or so here and do some more tasting (since we aren't much more hardcore than two-a-day it seems) and also get in a drive out to Morro Bay and maybe Hearst Castle.
Kevin's got a pork tenderloin cooking on the Traeger for dinner tonight, the afternoon breeze is picking up, it's still 86 degrees outside but supposed to cool off a bit tomorrow.
(Posted by Laura)
