We had hemmed and hawed quite a bit before deciding to go through with this trip. In reality, we were supposed to quarantine for 10 days upon arriving in California. The California variant of COVID is newer and not well-known. Still, we also knew we were going to be outside the whole time, we have been half vaccinated, and at some point getting on with life is important… so we went, and I’m glad we did.

No one ever likes their travel to be “interesting,” and our first day travel was. We set our alarms at 3 AM to get to the airport in time for a 6 AM flight. Then, at 3:55 I got the text from SWA. “Your connecting from from LAS has been cancelled.” Cancelled? Oh no! Not delayed. Cancelled. So, now what? Luckily SWA was wonderful as awesome and rerouted us through Denver, giving us preboarding status so we didn’t lose our early bird. Although we got into San Jose an hour and a half later than expected, it was no big deal. We hopped in the rental car and took off for our 2 hour and 40 minute journey into Paso Robles, California. This was to be our third time to what is now our favorite wine region.

We don’t like to waste the time, money, or calories on breakfast and lunch at restaurants when we’re in Paso, so our first stop was the cheese shop to pick up picnic supplies for the next four days.

We absolutely love Di Raimondo’s right there on the square in Paso Robles. They are very knowledgeable about pairings and helpful and were able to get us set up for the week.

This was also our third stay at our little apartment, Park Place, above the Bistro Laurent wine shop. It has dedicated free parking and it’s right at the edge of the square so it makes for easy walking to everywhere. When we got to the place it was hailing, tiny sand sized pieces of hail… and that was the ONLY bad weather we saw for the whole trip. We ran upstairs to throw our suitcases down before making the 2 minute trip to the first winery…

Herman Story… right next to Dan’s tire shop… with no view of which to speak other than a street and some hills off in the distance. This was our first stop for this trip. Since we didn’t get into town until after two o’clock, we knew this wasn’t the day for going dashing off to the west side. Besides, we LOVE Herman Story. We have been to Herman Story on all three trips, and we became members on our second trip. These are big, bold in-your-face reds that don’t pull any punches. Because of COVID, all tastings were outdoors, which was VERY nice. Herman Story set up a little section right outside their shop with picnic tables and heaters. Surprisingly, we needed the heaters. The temperature was in the 40s.. and the big wines were a prefect way to start the trip.

From there, it was off to Albertsons to get our staples for the week. Then, it was dinner time, Richard has been listening to a Paso Robles wine podcast: Where Wine Takes You, and one of the topics of conversation is often where to go for dinner. Many suggest the Thai place Basil in downtown Paso. Since it was literally .1 miles from our place, sounded like a great excuse to walk around downtown and pick up a bite. Up until a week before we went to Paso, all of California was relegated to outdoor dining. The county of San Luis Obispo had improved from purple to red COVID status before we went, so they were allowed to have 25 percent indoor dining, but we still chose to have all of our dining outdoors. Paso “pivoted” quickly to this model and the city was very supportive as they allowed for “parklettes” outside the restaurants. Yes, it made parking more challenging but took on an almost magical quality at night.

The Bl Brasserie patio is actually right at the base to our stairway, so it’s fun to be right in the center of things as soon as we descend the staircase.

We took our amazing Thai food back upstairs, popped open a bottle of Paso white wine and worked hard to stay awake until 9 PM. (Richard didn’t QUITE make it… after all we’d been up for 20 hours by that point…) We were ready for our first day of wineries!