When you stay downtown, you wake up VERY early in the morning.  The rumble of the delivery trucks starts right about 5:45 AM…  but Richard and I aren’t late sleepers to begin with.  We have wine to drink!

I do like the laziness of our mornings in the apartment.  We have a couple of hours to Facebook peruse, loll around, step outside and enjoy the beauty of the quiet town.  The picture above is what we see when we go down the stairs and look across the street. Paso is still a relatively small town (about 30, 000 people), and it still has that small town feel.

I was ULTRA excited about day #2, and it most certainly did NOT disappoint.  I like wine, but I’m not GOOD at tasting.  I’m not skilled in picking out every little nuance from every little grape, so spending hours sniffing and swirling don’t mean that much to me.  I like the wine experiences; I left the research of the best”experiences” to the bear, and he never disappoints. For me, on this trip, Adelaida was the best of the best.

We did the “Vineyard Tour, Taste, and Tailgate.”  The very handsome, charming, knowledgeable (and British) Glen, took us on a two hour ranch tour at the second most gorgeous property we saw on this trip to Paso (most gorgeous is day 3).

As we drove, he told us the story of how the old Walnut tree farm became a winery.  He showed us the grafting of black walnut onto English walnut on the trees.  On the way up steep inclines, he told us of all all the different microclimates on the property.  We stopped at the top of the hill where the warm air allows chardonnay to grow best.

We had the opportunity to try the tasty, lightly oaked chardonnay from that very vineyard.  As our tour continued, we were able to stop and taste syrah while we stood on its soil as well.  Eventually, we settled at a picnic table under the shade of a tree to have some local charcuterie and taste some back vintages.   The tasting room itself is GORGEOUS as well if you choose not to do the whole tour.  This was one of my FAVORITE wine tasting experiences EVER.  I learned a lot, and I enjoyed it very much.

From there, we went to Clos Selene.  The link has a great video that tells the story of this very French winery in Paso.  When we tried to go visit them in Tin City last year, they were in the middle of bottling.  This year, they had their very own stand alone winery.  We had a chance to taste Guillaume Fabre’s wines from a quaint little patio.  The vines at this location are new and have been grafted onto older vines to take root and get some of their character.

We have been trying to cut back on our 7 wineries a day habit that we developed on our early trips to Napa, so it was still early afternoon at this point, and we had finished our “obligations” for the day.

Glen had mentioned a boutique winery, Thacher where we chose to have our picnic lunch and spend some time with the winery dogs.  This is not a wine you’re likely to find distributed most places, but it was a very lovely 10-year-old winery owned by a former brewmaster, Sherman and his wife Michelle. They only make 3400 cases of wine a year total.

I love going to the wineries for their stories!   I love that Michelle was there to talk to us when we first came in and introduce us to her dogs.  It had the BEST stools out on the picnic patio; I need them for my house.

From there, we had a little time left, so we went to one of the best-known, big boys of Paso, Booker.  We had tried to go last year, but they were simply out of wine. This was a nice tasting.  They don’t have any of their high end items to try on the tasting room menu, but everything was good, and we got to meet Brutus. Anytime you meet a wine dog is a good day.

By this time, it was time to return to our humble abode… get cleaned up… and head out to dinner at Somm’s Kitchen.

I am a self proclaimed foodie and have spent over $1000 on a single meal–more than once (Yes, I have some shame associated with this.) I must tell you that this meal ranked in my top five of all time.  No joke!

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We had 11 courses (all shown in the slide show above, thanks to Richard).  Every one was more delicious than the last, and all were paired with about a half a glass of wine.  You could at any time ask for more wine, and I’m sure you could have asked for more food.

When you walk in, you sit at a semi circle bar with about 12 other guests.  Ian is the sommelier who plates all the dishes while you are being served.  He tells you how he prepared each dish (cherries soaking for a week, foie gras strained and restrained over 10 times, pineapple sliced tissue thin with a mandolin).  At one point he stopped and gave us a breakdown of how to taste a wine that was excellent for experienced wine tasters and novices.  I learned I could tell how much alcohol a wine has in it by where I feel it when I sniff.

The meal may have been off-putting to some.  There was no menu.  There was no price list.  We didn’t get to make any choices at all, and we weren’t told how much it would cost.  The only thing that was asked was “are you hungry.”  We were!   We were not when we left.  We shared each of the dishes over about a 2 hour period.  The total cost was $250.  We thought that was MORE than fair.  The people next to us did not feel the same way, so it’s not for all people.  I would do it again in a heartbeat!

We waddled from there back to our nightly ending spot of Taste in the Alley.  We had our nightcap and prepared for Day 3!