Paso Robles Wine Trip! Page 3

Saturday, March 25

Saturday was the big tour day. We were met by our driver/guide, Erik, and our Breakaway tour bus at 10 AM right outside the lobby of the PR Inn.

Greg & Kelly got the back seat.

Tablas Creek

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Our first stop was Tablas Creek http://www.tablascreek.com/ where we supposed to take part in a "viniculture tour" but, because of the weather, we had to taste wine instead. Darn.

Opolo

Because of the canceled tour at Tablas, we had plenty of time to enjoy our visit to Opolo Vineyards http://www.opolo.com/index.cfm. There we were lucky enough to know some people who know some people and we ended up spending an enjoyable couple hours with Dave Nichols, co-owner and co-winemaker. Initially he poured our wines in the tasting room and told us a little about the wines, the vineyard and their production process.

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Here we are in the tasting room.

While we were waiting for the caterers to arrive with our lunch, Dave came outside and offered to take us into the aging/blending/storage area to taste some wines right out of the huge stainless steel tanks. We sampled several unblended varietals and Dave explained a little about each one as well as the process of blending them prior to bottling.

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Dave is explaining the process and pouring a little sample for Skip.

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We found the stairs between two giant vats to be a good spot for photo-taking.

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The whole group plus Dave and except Lorri

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Here we are having some lunch accompanied by a few bottles of Opolo and joined by Mr. Breakaway, Erik

Midnight Cellars

We had such a great time at Opolo, it was hard to leave but Midnight Cellars http://www.midnightcellars.com/ was calling us.

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Our third stop provided a nice backdrop for a group photo.

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The sign being held up says "Happy Birthday Jacinto!". Jacinto is one of our favorite bartenders at the Meritage, the bar/restaurant  where we all met (well some of us anyway) at Thursday Night Martini Night.

Castoro Cellars

I must have totally forgotten to take any photos at Castoro http://www.castorocellars.com/  even though it was one of my favorite stops of the trip. So this is a photo of their tasting room which I ripped off from their web site. I hope they don't mind. Who are those people anyway?

We had a very nice dinner that night at Panolivo http://www.panolivo.com/pasorobles/ , a "French Mediterranean" restaurant just off the town square in Paso Robles.

 

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