Sunday morning was overcast and windy. Karen wasn’t ready to leave the hotel yet, so Vic and I headed into downtown Paso Robles looking for breakfast, while Karen opted to eat at the hotel. We found [appropriately] Vic’s Café and had a great breakfast, while discussing the events of the previous day as well as plans for the current one. After breakfast, I gave Vic a [quick] tour of downtown Paso Robles and then we went back to the hotel.
We were scheduled to meet up with the rest of our group at 11:30, but I knew there were some wineries that opened earlier. I suggested we go visit Venteux Vineyards, a producer of primarily Rhone-varietal based wines that I had visited awhile back and found to be quite good.
Scott and Bobbi Steizle had originally named their winery Fortitude, based on the effort it took to get it going. But a dispute with Foster’s Group caused them to change the name. They settled on Venteux.
According to the winery’s website, the name means “windy” in French. And it was certainly apt that day. As the weather continued to feel more like Winter than Spring, we entered the tasting room.
Sampling through their wines, I found them all to be very well made. My favorite that day was the 2007 “Tache Le Verre”, a Syrah made from grapes from the Alisos Canyon Vineyard Syrah in Santa Barbara County. I purchased a bottle of this, as well as buying [but not tasting] a bottle of Zinfandel that they had produced in very limited quantities for the Zinfandel Festival. [I am the Zin Fan, after all.]
Once again, it was approaching time to meet up with the rest of our group, so we said goodbye to the delightful tasting room staff and headed to Ecluse Wines.
To be continued…
Michael Perlis provides outsourced controller services to businesses that do not need a full-time controller. He balances this with his interest in wine: reading and writing about it and, of course, drinking it. He is still trying to figure out how to combine these two pursuits. Feel free to contact him about either at mcpfinancial@aol.com or michaelthezinfan@aol.com. “It is common practice for wine industry workers, wine writers and winery club members [and members of their party] to receive complimentary tastings and discounted purchases. Unless it is otherwise noted, it should be presumed that this is the case.”
