Paso Robles...

I woke up at about 6 in the morning on Saturday to prepare for a day of wine tasting in Paso Robles. Tony his brother Chuck and I drove over and picked up Steve and we started our way on the 101 northbound. Now having been to many wineries in Paso before, Tony and I basically were planning on giving a guided tour our the inexperienced guests, however by the end of this trip We had been givin a tour of moral grounds lower than we had thought possible.

Our first winery for the day was Eagle Castle. The lazy fuckers that run the winery hadnt finished opening yet, so I helped myself to some grapes off of the vine and brought them back to the car to munch on until they opened. The owner is fuckin rich, Eagle Castle has probably one of the most impressive wine tasting rooms I've ever seen, it is designed after a castle, complete with a moat and statues, however I cant speek so highly of the actual wine. While speaking with the girls behind the counter we decided on our next winery Fratelli Perata. Here they only do tasting by appointment, so we called and gave them notice.

One dirt road later we are being followed a beamer as we pull up to fratelli perata. Inside we found an old lady standing behind a mini sized wine bar. A blond girl that had gotten out of the BMW walked up and started introducing me to her husband, after the confusion passed Tony whispered in my ear that I had met her three weeks prior at Steve's place. The glasses were all layed out and we began our tasting. Fratelli Perata proved to be the best winery that I've been to in Paso Robles.

It was then that we decided to visit Zinada, It was pretty boring therre since Tony and I have tasted there 3 times now, but they still rank verry highly on my list. At this place I began to notice a pattern, that blond girl "Laryssa" would mention which wines to buy, and for some reason her husbund would have no input.

Hunt Cellars was the next winery on our list, the owner is an eccentric blind man who hires poor assholish wine snobbs to work his winery and doesnt give industry discounts for his overpriced wine. The wine wasn't worth contemplating but at this point Chuck's comments were. After this winery I belive that Chuc will be the next Keunu Reaves.

We headed next door from Hunt to Danoti to find an overcrowded circus of wine fiends flooding the place. they should just calle Opollo and Danati "Opolattti" becasue they were so similar im using one paragraph to describe both of them. the only thing distinguishing the two was how dirty the porta potties were at Opollo.

After Apollo we decided to drive back toward the 101 on peachy canyon road. The first winery we came apon was called Minassion Young. This place had one killer view and one smart dog. We played frisbe with the dog outside for like 15 minutes before we went in. As we were tasting a pourer/winemaker from the next winery walked in to visit. As we tasted and chatted we were oblivous to the social experiment we were about to encounter.

You wanna die? follow my directions: have your drunk wife drive you down a curvey back county road at 50 miles an hour and hang out of the sunroof to flip the world off. At this point in time logic unlocked its gates and let us pass. We were waiting for a tree branch to hit the fucker but he made it alive and luckly his wife didnt crash the beamer into us, It had been a close call...

We found our way to the next winery, but with great suprize we found that there was no pourer to tend to us, Hmmm I wonder where the fuck she went? This situation reminded me of kindergardners left in a classroom with a bowl of candy and no teacher.... We downed two or three bottles of wine broke two glasses and Laryssa ended up stealing two bottles before we fled.

Chronic was our next winerey, I dont realy rmember much but there was a good view, and Chuc did barrel rolls in a chair. twaz tight.

Cultural Retardation

This day had begun with the intention of tasting at two or three places and then going back home, but slowly as they day went on it degenerated into some sort tangled web of cultural retardation. It all started in los olivos, where we managed to happen across a place known as "Rdeau Bon"...

At this place, our pourer seamed at first to be a verry intelligent yet snobbish individual, but we soon discovered that there are verry differnt levels of snobishness in the wold. He guided us through the tasting sheet and about half way through we were about to swtich to reds, so he offered us to get some bread from the table in the back. While doing so the guy leans over the fucking table to see what my scores are (which were realy bad) and when we get back, he says nothing, and treats us exactly the same as before. I wondered how a snob might handle this type of situtaion, i figured a winey hissyfit would insue, i was wrong. I asked what his favorite wine on the tasting sheet was, and he stretched out is hand to point at it, exept instead of pointing with his index finger, he took the oppertunity to flip me off while showing me his favorite wine. And the whole time maintaining the same snoby fake smile and tone of voice as if nothing had changed. Welcome to the world of passive agressive winetasting.

2006 Siempre Sauvignon Blanc- shitty finish, apple sauce taste, weak body 65

2006 Lagniappe White- smells of sweet bleach, goes down with a smooth body 73

2006 Estate Viognier- soil present in the tast, tast to sharp, similar to meridian 65

2006 Estate Gernash- reminescent of the fealing of getting high off acrylic paint 79 *


Buttonwood on the other hand was verry pleasant experience. The gril serving us was pretty chill and they had these paintings on the walls that didnt make any since at all so we had a good conversation piece, it gets boring talking about wine when you drink it everyday. The best part about this place was the descriptions they had of there wines on the tasting sheet, like "sunshine in a bottle" or "a walk through the woods". and the best part, the girl at this winery didnt even flip us off.

2004 Merlot- steamy, smokey, and smooth 75

2004 Cabernet Franc- a taste of almond, with a spicy finish, structure 70

2003 Cabernet Sauvignon- cinimin, packs a punch, wholesome 70

2005 Pinot Noir- smooth eligant body, lingering pine finish 85 *

We proceeded down the road until we got to Solvang. Solange is basically a polish town in the middle of fucking california, now I dont know what these fucking poled were thinking when they decided to start breeding here, but I can only decribe the fealing of being there as "being raped of my own culture". We stopped first at a little tasting room known as Trio, our server here seamed like qite an accomplished gentlemen, he told us that he had once scaled the french alps, walked across the united states, and he had lived with aberiginies in australia for an entire year. We congratulated him for being the worlds most outgoing human being and then tasted a couple wines. Tony liked the Itallian Cianti, and he bought it.

2005 Pinot Noir- a taste of herbs and salt blended to perfection, a finsh of pepper 81 *

2003 Di Bruno Sangiovese- structure, earthy body, wholesome finsh 90 *

We stumbled down the street and randomly walked into some place called Addamo. I could tell right away there was something big about this place, mainly the pourer's breasts. Unforunatly they were very new so they didnt have tasting sheets yet, so she gave us legal pads to write our notes on. I would say that Trio was a lot better.

2004 Big Boy Pinot Noir- light pussy, balanced 60

2004 Pinot Noir- spicy water 70

2005 Pinot Noir- watered down, shitty 55

2005 Reserve- spicey, bitter, arregino 72

2005 Dolcatto- confusion, dizzy 55

Finally the last winey of the day: Lincourt. Now at lincourt they pair wines with differnt greek olives. At this point in time i was already to drunk to realize that this would be a mistake. but then to mix up the situation even more, this 90 year old german guy walks in adn sits down. I have 4 years of schooling in germen so i thought id try and say hello. Our drunk germen conversation quickly began to irritate the entire tasting room. Looking around my head began to wobble as i contemplated this moment, were sitting in California in a Polish town eating Greek olives and speaking Germen, then I ask tony where we should eat dinner, Italian he says...

2006 Pinot Noir- earthy, with a spicy bitter finsh 65

2006 Syrah- body, dark chocolate, bitter sweet, spicy finsh 70

Tasting around Lompoc

It had all begun with innocent intentions, it would be a day of wine tasting delight. Tony and I had planned on going wine tasting at Sanford winery at the wine ghetto in Lompoc, but first we had to hunt down one of the most elusive of workout supplements in the world, "blast cycle". We made it to GNC where they explained to us that the entire GNC chain dropped the product after a number of deaths, So, seeing that we had failed on this front we decided to find something to eat before we went twine tasting to help absorb some of the alcohol. We stepped into the Mexican place next to GNC on a brave voyage to into the unknown.

As we left after consuming our seemingly edible food, we both discovered quickly that something had gone terribly wrong. As we drove up toward Cottonwood Canyon Winery, we both sunk to a new low in mental productivity and by the time we got there we had the intelligent of restarted 3 year old girls. Our goal there was to retrieve Tony's business cards which would eliminate any expenses from out wine tasting journey, but tony was overwhelmed by an excruciating desire to take a shit. After he was done we left to drive toward the winery we would be tasting at, only to realize 30 minutes later that tony couldn't find his fucking business cards.

We stopped the car, got out, looked everywhere, nothing. At this point I was beginning to feel the effect of the Mexican food, we turned around to go back to the winery but I knew that my time was limited. As we got closer i felt the bowel movements, the pain, and the guilt of knowing that i could shit myself at any moment, I even had to stop myself from laughing due to the fear of laughing so hard that i shit myself. When we got there I ran into the back door and jumped into the bathroom and fireworks show out of my ass, while tony went upstairs and discovered that he had never even picked his business cards up off the table. Feeling much better I stepped out the door with tony and we proceeded to make our way toward Sanford winery.

After two hours we finally made it to our first winery, walking in there was a feeling of hope. That feeling of hope was quickly lost. The poorers at this winery were the most dull people I have ever met, they made the experience more awkward than that dream where you show up to school with no cloths on. Everyone at Sanford winery should be shot.

2006 Chardonnay, Santa Barbara County-terrible

2006 La Rinconanda Vineyard Chardonnay, Santa Rita Hills-Very thick, a hint of bailies

2007 Pinot Noir-Vin Gris Santa Barbara County- the same after taste as robotussin

2005 Pinot Nior Santa Rita Hills-New car smell, with a touch of light pepper

20006 Pinoy Noir Santa Rita Hills-Bitter, Raspberries, Jam, Short

Leaving there we made our way to Mosby winery to taste Italian grapes that were harvested in California, this was a more interesting experience. The man who served us was obviously well liquored up himself, and wore a nice hells angel style cowboy hat. Almost every wine we tasted there was better than what we tasted at Sanford, and being able to speak with people that weren't socially retarded was a bonus. I will be visiting them again.

2004 Sangiovese- papery sweet, diluted aregino, bitter end

2005 Ossessione- leather smell, goes down too quick, oak

2005 Teroldego- rose smell, spice, pepper, finish sucks

2004 La Seduzione- gravy, Cuban cigar, fresh bell pepper

At the final winery we were served by some illegal immigrant whore. Her act was pretty decent until the end of out tasting when I asked top try the wine that I was ready to buy and the whore accused me of being a fucking drunk, but I quickly replied that if she did not want me to buy anything today then she could continue acting like a fucking Nazi. She let up, and let me taste the pino, which i quickly purchased and left.

SRH Chardonnay- citrus, oranges, a slight bit of vanilla

Lafond Vineyard Chardonnay- apple, parrot, lent

SRH Pinot Noir- Bitter, Pepper

Arita Hills Vineyard Pinot Noir- fruit, bitter body

SHR Syrah- fruit, pepper, light, bitter

Lafond Vineyard Syrah/Grenache- terrible, stale, bitter