The Garagiste Wine Festival was a great excuse, not that you need one, to spend a long weekend in Paso Robles. The rainy season has already begun in Northern California. Heading south to Paso Robles gave us a break from the rain and some terrific sunny, 80 degree weather we happily soaked up!

Serial Wines tasting room is just off the square in downtown Paso Robles with a very fun, contemporary and comfortable ambiance. It seemed a particularly perfect place to enjoy our first tasting before dinner.

Shawn Price hosted us with pours of their red wines. We walked out with two favorites – a 2021 Serial Adelaida District Grenache and a 2021 Serial Bien Nacido Vineyard Santa Maria Valley Syrah. The tasting room is a wonderful addition to downtown offering tastings and wine by the glass or bottle as late as midnight on the weekends.

Hawks Hill Ranch was our Friday morning tasting. The ranch is 240 acres of hills and valleys, vines and sheep, with a 1000 foot elevation span! Their tasting room is off property, just down the road from the ranch. You can visit the ranch, if time permits, as they offer an extensive tour (2 hours) of the ranch that sounds fantastic.

Their 2022 Moth to Flame Chardonnay was delicious as were the 2022 Dark Pool Syrah and the 2022 Capitulation Zinfandel which we took with us.

Friends who love contemporary architecture recommended we visit Booker. After a very tasty lunch at Red Scooter we headed there.

Booker produces excellent wine and showcases it in a true architectural gem. The site, the building and the grounds are quite special with a mind-boggling number of areas set to taste indoors and out. Guests arrive non-stop. It’s a very busy place.

The extensive size of the facility and appeal to big happy parties arriving in limos is not our favorite tasting venue but the wine is lovely and the property and attention to detail in the portion of the facility we experienced was over the top – well done.

Following our visit at Booker we stopped at The Royal Nonesuch Farm for a visit in their new tasting room. Anthony Yount is the owner, winemaker. He learned winemaking at Denner where he was head winemaker for many years. He continues to act as consulting winemaker for them now, as well as other consulting and acting as winemaker for Hawk’s Hill Ranch. Anthony started making his own wine under the label – Kinero at Denner and subsequently launched The Royal Nonesuch Farm with his wife Hillary. We have enjoyed his wines for years starting with the 2019 vintage.

The reason there are no additional images of our visit there is simply because we were having such great conversations with Allie and Denise who were maning the tasting room the day we visited.

Truly a visit here is about as perfectly down home and fun as it gets. The wine is honestly amazing too! We picked up our allocation and additional purchases of the 2023 Royal Nonesuch Farm Spine and a reload on the 2021 Red Wine, and headed back into Paso Robles.

We set out for a tasting and to purchase some library wines at Turley Winery in Templeton the next morning. It had been 14 years since our last visit to this Turley location.

The 2022 Dusi Vineyard Zinfandel was one of my favorites – so easy to drink and the 2022 Presenti Vineyard Petit Syrah will be even better in years to come if you can leave it alone.

Just a side note – I took a photo of the Turley tasting room doorway this visit to compare it to the one I had taken back in 2011 that was used to feature one of my sculptures – “Walter – Who, Where?” Basically the same – like the wine, wonderful as always!

Several wineries host events featuring burgers and wine in Paso. We tried Caliza Winery’s ‘Burger Sunday’ following a tasting on the winery’s patio.

The tasting was hosted by Shelia and Talia – two very knowledgeable and friendly ladies. Our favorites of the tasting were the 100% 2022 Syrah and the 2022 Companion, a blend of Cabernet Suavignon, Syrah & Petit Verdot.

We shared a bottle of the Companion with our burgers and had time to sit back, listen to the live music and get acquainted with some lovely people! The burger event is very, very popular. Friends and families come for the afternoon with full picnic spreads to compliment the burgers and wine.

Leaving behind a relaxing picnic we headed on to Copia. This vineyard and winery is the passion of Anita & Varinder Sahi. We had a taste of one of their wines at the Gaagiste – their 2022 The Cure, a blend of Syrah, Grenache, & Mourvèdre. It was terrific.

Kylie hosted us on the deck overlooking the vines. Copia grows grapes on their two estates – one in Willow Creek and the other in the Adelaida District. They produce a handful of award wining wines from Rosé to deep rich Syrah and Cabernet Suavignon. The 2022 The Story Grenache/Syrah, the 2022 The Anchor Mourvèdre/ Syrah and the 2022 The Cure Syrah/Grenache/Mourvèdre were our favorites.

It was great fun to be able to arrange so many wonderful tasting experiences around the Garagiste Wine Festival. We wrote a separate blog post on the festival tasting so please, if you haven’t read it, take a look. Listed below are the additional wineries and the wines we found to be exceptional.

• Cairjn Wine Cellars – 2022 Crown of Avignon – GSM & 2022 Belnd No. 3 – Cabernet /Syrah
• Emercy Wines – 2022 Enter the Void – Grenache / Mourvèdre
• Kaleidos – 2022 Osiris – GSM & 2022 Praying Mantis – Petite Sirah / Syrah
• Zobèto – 2023 Dizziness of Freedom – Syrah / Grenache

Finally, I will end by mentioning the restaurants we enjoyed that you can find links to on the “Shop Eat Sleep” page. We had wonderful casual dinners at Della’s twice. Their pizza is sensational. We’ve been to The Hatch before and it was even better than our last visit! We lunched at both Gravesend and Red Scooter and loved them both.

Yup – A very full weekend of wine, good food, and terrific conversation!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!