Paso Robles Wine Trip TODOTC.com To Do in the Twin Cities Restaurants Paso Robles Wine Trip July 1-4, 2021 Paso Robles CA www.travelpaso.com

Paso Trip overall  ·· Our weekend Wine Trip from MSP to Paso Robles wine region This was our first time to Paso Robles. We learned a lot and thought we would share so other people coming out would have the great time we did. First of all this is how we did it that worked for us, but may not be the best way. We’ll try to explain our reasons, even if they are dumb.

Why a wine vacation We have been into wine for ten years and created and own The MN Wine Club. We are in six local MN wine clubs and taste about six times a month. So wine is kinda a major part of our life. We are fascinated with wine FAR beyond the liquid. History of our Wine Trips Two years ago we made a similar trip to Napa & Sonoma. We went over the July 4th weekend because of the extra days off, good weather and grapes in good condition to look at. We did not want to be on a tour bus, because we HATE aunt Meme asking everyone to wait while she buys ONE MORE T-shirt or $20 box lunches.

Someone suggested we post we were looking for a driver for the wine region for $30/hour on Craigs List, their car. We got a dozen people offer. The adv cost us $5. We did it again this year in Paso and got ONE Offer, which we accepted. Two weeks later we had three more backups. Why Paso We chose Paso because it was safe. We would like to go to Willamette in Portland , OR or the Seattle, WA wine regions, but we kinda don’t wanna die and that is the current state of those cities.

We felt very safe every where we went in Paso. Getting here: We got up at 2:30 AM Twin City Time Thursday July 1st. We flew from MSP to Phoenix at 6 AM. For the first time in our lives we flew first class, it was $30 more each for two of us for two flights each. Check on first class when you fly we got a box of about 5 different kinds of food, we did not need to share drinks, got half extra seating, got on/off first, did not have to share a rest room, had our own stewardess, extra storage for our bags. Well worth the extra $.

We arrived at San Luis Obispo County Airport at 10 A M PST and picked up our car form Hertz we booked through Expedia. I think it was $65/day plus $15 insurance plus state fees about $300 for three days. The reason we needed a car is the only transportation to Paso, thirty minutes away is a 3 PM train. we don’t do trains and the you STILL would need to walk to the hotel. Could of Uber’d but in the Covid world we didn’t know. And NO One in Paso said Uber was reliable these days. AND at NO wineries did we see Uber/Lift cars. Get a car! The SLO airport is a bit small, they have about 5 gates, all from the same 200’ square room. And baggage claim is, baggage claim, no numbers.. LOL They have an electronics friendly waiting area with plugins for electronics. The rental cars are all next to baggage claim. It took us 5 minutes to have our car. We got to know the parking space #. Unlike another rental car customer that kept hitting her remote and listening for the horn… seriously! The VW car was clean and was full of gas ready to go.

First Day We had reservations at the Paso Robles Inn downtown Paso. The problem is it was 10AM local and our check In was 4 PM. So against better judgement we decided to tour a few wineries in the six hours we had before checkin. There are two business districts between the airport and downtown Passo. We got a cooler, water, pop, ice & munchies at a local Walgreen. We also ate at Wendys. Day one Wineries We decided to tour West Paso wineries. There are wineries on all sides of Paso. We chose West Paso wineries because we wanted to drive out to the beach and San Simeon.

We had reservations for 1 PM at Tablas Creek Winery. We were there by noon and they took us in early. Tablas is one of the top wineries, worth the time. We like sharing flights of wine for several reasons and no winery told us we couldn’t. At an average winery you’ll get six wines of one ounce+ tasting for anywhere from Free to $75. I posted our Tablas Creek tasting info, so you can search for that on Facebook. in our three days of eight wineries of about six wines each we had VERY FEW bad wines. It was just the matter of How Good they were and our likes might be your dislikes.

Tasting Two Thursday Looking at the map Halter Winery was across the street from Tablas and they had Walnuts and Olives which we were interested in. Without reservations Halter allowed us to taste. In our three days of tasting we were turned away from only ONE winery on Day three and their Front gate was not open, and we did not have reservations there. Halter was a nice winery.

Tasting Three Thursday One of the first wineries we got reservations for when we knew we were coming out to Paso was Justin Winery. We set-up Justin for three o clock about 8 miles away. BTW 8 miles in the Paso area means about 12-15 minutes they have a few 15 & 30 mph hair pin corners as you drive around the curvy roads of the area. Justin winery had a great tasting room and wines. When we sat down we each got Fiji Water which my wife E absolutely loves. We did not know of the controversy it had caused. It seems the people that own Fiji water bought Justin Winery a few years ago. They then tore up a few oak trees in the land called Paso Robles, or Pass of the Oaks. Oak Trees is what Pasos History is about and the locals take their Oak trees very seriously. You need a permit from the County to disturb an Oak Tree and one has not been granted in 50 years. So when Justin’s new owners ignored the law and destroyed one, that did not go over big with the locals. We thought you should know that because Justin though they have great wine have local issues. I posted an entire review with pictures of Justin Winery.

Trip to the Coast & San Simeon We don’t get out to CA often and never to this region. When we come to a new region we at least feel the need to see the local highlights. One of them is Hearst Castle and San Simeon a beautiful area. And only about 30 miles and 45 minutes from Justin Winery. The trip to the ocean is past some of the highest drop-offs just outside the roadside of anywhere in the area, some a thousand feet a few feet off the road. We had less that a glass an hour of wine for the last three hours so we were in pretty good condition. We made it to the beautiful San Simeon and the Hearst Castle to find the castle closed, but we saw it. we spent a few minutes beach time at the free parks and drove forty minutes to Paso Robles after.

Our Hotel We chose the Paso Robels Inn, our hotel after watching several You tube videos. We questioned several times if we picked correctly. Our final conclusion is we did. The Paso Robles Inn is not the newest of hotels but they have 65” high def TVs, a hot tub some in rooms, a pool, a nice restaurant and is centrally located on the downtown park. On the side of the Paso Robles Inn is the Piccolo Inn a newer property with a great rooftop bar but, we did not know about it when we booked. Within a 3-4 block walking distance of either hotel are dozens of great restaurants and in the same block an Italian restaurant that is considered the best restaurant in Paso. But reserve your hotel room when you know you are going. We paid about $250/night. I overheard Saturday someone trying to get a room and they were quoted over $800 for one of the few rooms left!. If we had one complaint at our hotel was no daily maid service. We could get new towels every day but with the shortage of employees with Covid they just did not have the man-power. The restaurant in the hotel was good. Being from the midwest we are two hours off Paso time Zones. At 9 AM local time we want to eat breakfast and the hotel restaurant opened at 8 Am many of the local restaurants opened at 10… time for midwesterners LUNCH.

A tradition Eggs/fruit Breakfast costed us $15/each but that had to last us until 4-5 for evening meal, which it did. After tasting we would relax in the hot tub and watch TV for a bit, it worked out well.We got to the hotel at about 6:30 on Thursday night checked in and had a steak and relaxed by the hot tub & pool. We ate at our Hotel and it was good. Downtown Thursday We were unaware about the great activities that the city and the business community offer at the downtown city square. Thursday night they had a live band and food stands across the street from our hotel.

All of Paso Robles was VERY family & Pet friendly/safe atmosphere, we ALWAYS felt safe! Go to the Paso Chamber of Commerce website they have an incredible list of restaurants, wineries, hotels, casinos… the chamber is at https://www.pasorobleschamber.com/ Friday Luis our driver As I said we do not like tour services because we like to decide were we go and not wait on others. So just like when we went to Napa and Sonoma we put an adv on Craigslist Paso Robels for about $5, three weeks before we were going for a driver in the Paso Wine region $30/hour 8 hour days. ONE PERSON responded. Luis said he would do it. A week later we got another response of a person that would do it for $75/hour if they used our Rental car & gas… thankfully Luis had offered already. Luis is 40ish who’s family came from Cancun and is the take care of everything guy. He has parked cars, cut & sold grapes, hauled trash and knew this area he was driving us around.

On Friday we rode in his pickup truck on Saturday he had I a Toyota car. Not luxury but comfortable. Luis knew where a few of the wineries were but with an address he easily found them all. You’ll need to do some research first on where you want to go but he will find it. We showed him some wineries he has never been to that he will be going back to. We paid Luis cash $150 to start the day and another $100 with a $40 tip at days end. And he emailed us after day two he appreciated the Ca$h it really helped him out. The contact info for Luis is e-mail Luisleal79@yahoo.com and cell phone is 805-296-9514 he was very happy doing it and said we could share his contact info.

Friday Wineries Winery One Sculpterra We had reservation to only three wineries when we got on the plane to come out. Justin & Tablas on Thursday and Sculpterra at noon on Friday. If we had to pick only ONE out of the eight wineries we visited Sculpterra hands down would be the one. There is no winery in the region that compares to Sculpterra. The grounds are at par with the best in Napa & Sonoma and anything we have seen. The Sculpters at Sculpterra are unbelievable and FREE to tour. Even Luis our driver said this place is incredible, I gotta bring my kids here he said. Sculpterra I believe opened at 10AM, but MOST wineries open at 11AM, check that out before you book and make plans. We walked around and looked at the 30+ INCREDIBLE Sculptures for an hour. We were told they could do our tasting early but chose to be outside looking at sculptures first. The 30ish sculptures were all done by three local artists. One worked in stone, one metal and the third was multimedia. They have a Lion Statute that was carved from a 30 ton piece of China marble that is incredible. Twice in the carving the 30 ton block cracked and he had to restart from scratch. You should go online to see these great works but pictures don’t do these great works justice. Sculpterra also has a dozen story boards of the history of the area. Including info about Jesse James and the Younger brothers came to the local sulfur baths to heal their gun shots protected by his dad and some of the towns people. The history boards tell the incredible story of the area. This is the only place we learned about the still open Sulphur baths that Paso is still known for. When we finally got around to tasting our pourer’s name was Randi, a lady. A lady that knew as much about wines and the area that anyone could ask for. We sat with Randi for about 30 minutes after our tasting and learned even more. We tasted about six wines for free and bought the only bottle of wine we bought at Paso. We don’t buy wine while on vacation because we do not check any bags for a weekend trip and you can’t carry on wine. We brought the empty bottle home with us because of the great art on the bottle. We have been tasting wine for ten years, we have seen a LOT of wine bottles. Sculpterra has the most complete and classy labeling of any winery. They tell you EXACTLY what is in the bottle to the percentage and many other things not required by law. The law says you have to state the grape if it is over 65%. Sculpterra will tell you down to 1%. Plus the Appellation, the Vineyard, Block, type of harvest (hand/machine), harvest dates of every varietal in the bottle, type of fermentation barrel it was put in, the state of manufacture of the oak barrel, where the wine was bottled and date and how many cases of this wine was produced. That is a LOT of information to tell the public on each bottle, but is appreciated.

Winery Two A few miles from Sculpterra winery was Cass winery another of the great wineries in the region. They are a certified Sustainable winery, which is always interesting. We toured the herb garden and chickens as they were cooking for the tasters to come with the day. Cass was a nice winery and had good wine but one of the problems with 300 wineries within about 40 miles is lacking Sculptures or a great view or some thing unique, what do you say about the winery. As I have eluded too how do you pick the three or four wineries a day to visit. We buy a bottle or two a week so we see a lot of labels and we visit those we know of. Many wineries are not available retail so they never make our RADAR. That is the case with Sculpterra, but they had their gardens.

So for our third winery of the day we notice a few miles away was Earnest Hemingway Winery. We are big Hemingway history fans after visiting his house and Sloppy Joes in the Key’s so it caught our eye. Winery Three So we went to the Earnest Hemingway winery. If you are NOT into Hemingway, you have no reason to go to this Winery. If you are, there is some really great Hemingway stuff. We bought something with a great Hemingway quote: “DO sober what you SAY you will do drunk!” The wines were OK, it’s a small winery that the Hemingway Family chose to produce wines for them. That completed our wine tasting for Friday we were done by three only Five hours from starting.

Tin Cup From when we first start doing research on Paso the Tin Cup party area had all kinds of info about it on You tube. So Friday Night we looked forward to going out to Tin Cup and eating and drinking there. We arrived at 5 PM to find very few people, only two food truck options and many places empty or closing for the day. We had a pulled pork sandwich and returned to the hotel mostly discouraged.

Friday eats When we pulled into the Paso Robles Inn we notice music and a good number of people across the street at the city square. So still hungry we walked across the street to see what they had for food. After one pass of the square we decided we wanted Pizza and sat down at Marv’s Pizza. We had good pizza & drinks for $30. We also talked about and learned about to area for a few minutes with the owner. I told them the area could do a better job of helping out of towers spend our Money$ in their town. He said the Chamber was not doing a great job with tourism. That said I went to the Paso Chamber website, posted earlier, and they do a great job, if we think of looking there.

Saturday Farmers Market If you are into Farmers Markets there is one in the city square. There are only about a dozen booths with veggies, Berries, flowers, honey and other Farmers market things.

Winery One As we were looking up wineries to tour we noticed the Eberle Wineries was one of the oldest in the area and had a Cave Tour… were IN! The people at Eberle know their marketing. We went in and was greeted cordially. We were asked if we had reservations, we told them we did not. Now if you think you are going to make reservations once you get to Paso realize most are full on weekends and most don’t open or answer their phone before 11 AM. But Eberle has a great solution. They have a beautiful deck with an epic view where they will put you IF you have a reservation. OR a tasting bar if you do NOT have a reservation, we were happy to drink wine at the tasting bar. The wines at Eberle were good. We had an exceptional Eberle wine at the restaurant that night. The tasting was $25 no cost if you buy $40 of wine. Which is easy to do with most vineyard wines costing $60 and up.

Cave Tour If you leave Paso without going on the Eberle Cave tour you did not see some of the best. The Eberle Cave tour is very informational and free. It seems years ago Mr Eberle decided since much of Europe ages their wines in caves, so should them. So he went to the County Seat San Luis Obisbo and applied for a Cave digging permit. It seems no one had ever done that, so he was denied. Never one to give up he sent to Sacramento and spent $25 and bought a Mining Permit and they started mining for wine. They STILL have NOT found any yet, but they haven’t given up. The caves are about 25’ round and full of oak aging barrels. The dirt that was MINED was used to make their parking lot. There is a lone Oak shade tree in their parking lot that’s about 5’ below the parking lot base… That’s the amount of dirt removed for the caves.

Winery Two For our second winery of the day eighth total we picked a winery that was not too far away. Again we had no reservations. When we showed up at the gate there was no welcome sign or way to get the gate open, with many you drive close and they open, so we went on to the last winery of the day & trip.

Winery Three For our last winery we chose the Hearst Family Winery of Paso, created by the son of Randolph Hearst. They have a second winery by the castle that just opened. The Hearst Winery is a small winery seating perhaps five-ten groups of four, they let us taste without reservations. They had good wines and nice people Saturn Mass

Luis our driver asked us if we wanted to see one of the oldest Spanish Missions in all of California, it was just up the road. We said, why not sure. So for $5 each we took 30 minutes and toured the Mission build in the 1700s before the U.S. became a country. And YES they introduced grapes & wine to the region. If you are into a bit of history it’s not a bad self guided tour.

Saturday Meal We were looking for a great Italian Restaurant Saturday night. Our hotel recommended Ristorante IL Cortile on the same block. We walked to the back of the property through the new Piccolo Hotel that Paso Roble Inn owns and one door down was IL Cortile. We were there before five so they were still setting up. Liam the manager told us they were booked for the night but there was open bar seating which we took when they opened. Liam and his wife came to Paso a year ago at the height of Covid and had some stories, but they made it through. We do food/wine reviews in Minneapolis, we review 40 restaurants a year. Last weekend we were at a seven course meal cooked at a chefs home. The meal we had at IL Cortile matched anything we had had for the past year. We had warm bread & oil & balsamic vinegar. Followed by Heirloom Tomatoes with Water Buffalo cheese & truffle sauce. Followed by Ravioli Mais Dolce which was a pasta stuffed with what tasted corn on the cob…. it was incredible. To match anything we had had in the past year of 40 restaurants. We found out later this is considered the top restaurant in Paso and we can tell why. Our bill was under $75 because we always share our food.

See the Heights In Minneapolis our favorite bar/restaurant is Skybar on the roof of a great restaurant. That restaurant in Paso in on the same block as Paso Robles Inn on top of the Piccolo hotel next to IL Cortile restaurant called Tetto. Daniel is the guy to ask to have a great time and ask him about the NYC Opera company he owns. They only have apps and deserts so reserve your spot at IL Cortile before or after. But Tetto is your place to party the night away. Returning Home

On Sunday July 4th we started our way back to the Twin Cities. We have no regrets and had a great time. Hopefully this post will help you do the same! Enjoy! D&E 

Contact us Dennis@ToDoTC.com