Our second day, in Paso Robles WINE COUNTRY
For those of you who know me, I can be quite the pretentious bastard when it comes to epicurian delights. Not surprisingly enough, going to wine country was one of the main reasons for coming down to California, since Jeff (my brother) and I are of age, and my mother and father are quite the oenophiles. We woke at 10:00, had our complimentary breakfast and headed toward our first winery, Peachy Valley. There we learned that Paso Robles is mainly Zinfandel country. This particular place offered at least 10 Zinfandels for tasting (each tasting cost five dollars, which could be waived if we purchased wine. Interestingly, each wine, even though they were the same grape, had distinct characteristics, depending upon which field the grapes were grown. or when the wine was bottled. We also learned that the wines grown in Paso Robles wine country each had the distinct smell of blueberries and pepper. We tasted 16 wines at this place, and drove off to our next winery, Opolo.
This place had some very interesting wines, however, the zinfandel that they offered was too sweet. However, we tried two of the best tasing wines there. My father and I particularly enjoyed the Sangiovese, a wine with the delicious, yet not overpowering taste of strawberries. Their most famous wine, Fusion, was also very interesting, it had the taste of Caramel. Interestingly, the 2006 vintage was much tastier than the 2007 vintage.
The next winery we went to was Robert Hall. We went on a winery tour, which was interesting, but the tour guide was not very knowledgeable about the process of making wine and merely showed us some of the machines (pictures to come). The fermenting barrels were also very interesting, they held several hundred gallons of wine, (even including units for how many gallons per unit of depth, the biggest barrel had something like 47 gallons per inch). This place had THE best port I have ever tasted, and when paired with chocolate the flavor EXPLODED, we needed to buy a bottle.
Next we went to local restaurant, Taco Bell...
The next winery we went to was Turley winery. At this point, my nose was all burnt out, and we were all getting kind of tipsy, my dad liked some wines and then we left.
To end the day, I treated my family to a teppenyaki restaurant. The chef put on quite the show, flipping his knives, and creating sculptures with our food.The food was also delicious.
Ya... by the end of this post, the pretentious meter broke. However, look these wineries up, try some of their wines. They were delicious, and relatively inexpensive. You had to be there to fully experience the flavors, the smells, and the atmosphere.
I'll have more updates and pictures soon.
Stay Classy,
Matt
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
CALIFORNIA TRIP (part1)
HEY! I'm back, and I have vacation stories!!
For the past 5 days, (starting from the ninth) I've been in California for a last hurrah family vacation. Since I have time, a reliable computer, and something to talk about, I decided to (finally) update! The first day, we woke up at 4:45am to catch a 7:20 flight to San Francisco. When we came in, we were greeted by my aunt, Carol and my favorite little cousin, Rumela. (oh, and before you ask, will update with pictures when I get back after the 19th. We obtained our rental Ford Expedition (from my uncle Zul), and headed toward our first stop, Hearst Mansion.
We started this trip by heading down Highway 1 along the pacific coast. BEAUTIFUL drive, there were so many views of mountains, rock islands, white beaches. Of course, the drive was on top of a 300ft cliff directly outlining the coast which made things SCARY AS HELL. Beautiful and scary as it was, the most stunning thing about this drive was the how quickly the landscape was changing.
However, we made it to Hearst Mansion just in time for our tour to start. We learned all about who William Hearst was, how he became successful, and how long it took to build his palatial mansion, and legenday village on top of a mountain. Apparently, Hearst's father was a gold miner who struck it rich by hitting a silver vein. Using this money, the young William and his mother went to Europe and he was captivated by the architecture, particularly of the Mediterranean area. Years later, after becoming a successful businessman by starting up the San Francisco Chronicle, he decided to build a small villa on top of the hill where he and his family went camping during the summer. A small villa with a 40 room mansion, 3 guest houses, a zoo, two pools, a movie theatre, and 70 acres of surrounding land. Yeah, I kinda hated the guy near the end of the tour too. However, he began building his mansion when he was 50 years old!
And that was only the FIRST day, there are a lot more adventures to tell you about later, its getting late!
Stay Classy,
Matt
For the past 5 days, (starting from the ninth) I've been in California for a last hurrah family vacation. Since I have time, a reliable computer, and something to talk about, I decided to (finally) update! The first day, we woke up at 4:45am to catch a 7:20 flight to San Francisco. When we came in, we were greeted by my aunt, Carol and my favorite little cousin, Rumela. (oh, and before you ask, will update with pictures when I get back after the 19th. We obtained our rental Ford Expedition (from my uncle Zul), and headed toward our first stop, Hearst Mansion.
We started this trip by heading down Highway 1 along the pacific coast. BEAUTIFUL drive, there were so many views of mountains, rock islands, white beaches. Of course, the drive was on top of a 300ft cliff directly outlining the coast which made things SCARY AS HELL. Beautiful and scary as it was, the most stunning thing about this drive was the how quickly the landscape was changing.
However, we made it to Hearst Mansion just in time for our tour to start. We learned all about who William Hearst was, how he became successful, and how long it took to build his palatial mansion, and legenday village on top of a mountain. Apparently, Hearst's father was a gold miner who struck it rich by hitting a silver vein. Using this money, the young William and his mother went to Europe and he was captivated by the architecture, particularly of the Mediterranean area. Years later, after becoming a successful businessman by starting up the San Francisco Chronicle, he decided to build a small villa on top of the hill where he and his family went camping during the summer. A small villa with a 40 room mansion, 3 guest houses, a zoo, two pools, a movie theatre, and 70 acres of surrounding land. Yeah, I kinda hated the guy near the end of the tour too. However, he began building his mansion when he was 50 years old!
And that was only the FIRST day, there are a lot more adventures to tell you about later, its getting late!
Stay Classy,
Matt
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