wine tasting along the central coast

our plan for our first full day along the central coast was to head up to paso robles to do some wine tasting.  the wineries are allowed to host tastings as long as it's done outside with social distancing and masks whenever possible, so we looked up a few and made a couple of appointments.

the next morning, the hub dropped us off at andersen's bakery to grab some breakfast for the drive.

along with our breakfast sandwiches and iced lattes (which were so delicious i never did get a picture of them), we picked up some sort of kringle (raspberry, i think?  i don't remember) and a meringue cookie.

cocoa wasted no time getting herself comfy on the bean's lap.

paso robles is about an hour and a half or so north of santa barbara.  we'd timed our departure to arrive just in time for our first tasting at 11:00 at sextant wines - which, by the way, they'd confirmed with me via text and several emails.  and so you can imagine how annoyed we were when we got there, noticed zero cars in the lot and found this on the door:

thanks for nothing, sextant.  buttholes.

just a short distance away was grey wolf/barton family winery.  it just so happened that we'd scheduled ourselves a tasting the next day, but we decided to head on over and see if they might have an opening for us then.  lucky for us, they were happy to switch our reservation and walked us right back into the courtyard, where we were seated at a table right in the middle.

we were given this little spray sanitizer, which was minty and refreshing.  of course, it was for sale as well, and with every purchase they would donate an equivalent amount to someone in the local community.

you know i don't know jack about wine.  i'm not even really much of a wine fan, but i enjoy these outings because it's usually somewhere pretty and who doesn't like that?  so while i perused the wine list, i left it up to the others to make the selections.

of course, there was charcuterie.  isn't there always charcuterie?  i was giggling at a meme i saw the other day that said charcuterie trays are cool now due to all the kids who grew up on lunchables.  that doesn't sound funny because that was a terrible explanation.  oh well.

we left with a full case of wine plus a full size wine bottle of the hand sanitizer.  till next time, grey wolf!

most of the other wineries we'd hoped to visit were either closed or booked for the day, but we did manage to make it to one other tasting - at pasolivo, home of california extra virgin olive oil.  while we left the kids outside to do their tasting, the hub and i went into the shop to pick out some stuff to take home.

it's always fun to drive through this area - it's so scenic and pretty.

we actually zoomed right past this field but had to make a quick u-turn to let the dogs see some animals.  heh.

we decided to stop at barrel house brewery, since the old lady and her special friend had never been here and they all decided they were thirsty.

and just a few steps away we found a really tasty hard apple cider slushy that the old lady happily shared with me.  i thought i'd gotten a decent picture of it, but you know how good my photography skills are.

on our way back we stopped for pizza, which we ate on a picnic table next to the truck.  it was tasty and filling, nothing exciting.  and the intense heat in paso had us all pretty drained, so everyone just passed out in their rooms fairly early.  not to mention, we had another tasting scheduled at another winery in paso at 10:15 the next morning.  this meant we had to be on the road by at least 8:15...maybe a little earlier to squeeze in a coffee run.

still...good times with family, wine and pizza.  that's pretty much all i want in life.