Not far for you since you live in the valley but far for us OC folks. 5 hours on the way back home Monday. Yes we would be there way more if it was a ~2 hour drive. We’re trying out Temecula soon but are ready to be disappointed by both food and wine.
oh OC is brutal! also i’m in Conejo valley 
never the valley… that’s too close to family, Tablas bought a Temecula winery, so you’ll have at least 1 good source of juice in the future.
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My wife and I are heading up to Paso for three days in July. Having never been, I was hoping for some winery recommendations. We prefer reds to whites and our favorite varietals include pinot noir (really enjoy Bella Glos, Flowers, and Kosta Browne), shiraz, syrah (enjoy the Krupp Brothers labels) and malbec. I’ve read that the Paso Robles region specializes in the blend GSM so naturally we’d like to try some good examples. I suspect that we will spend 1/2 a day at Tin City and walk around the downtown area, and then maybe one day on the east side of Paso and another on the west side (which will likely include a stop at the Daou winery) checking out the wineries.
In terms of food, review of prior posts suggests that Les Petites Canailles and Hatch remain strong options.
Naturally, I will report back after our vacation.
Thanks in advance.
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Best wine in the region is the west side of paso going down to templeton… it benefits from significantly cooler temp than east of freeway… For me Daou is very skippable but it’s impresive for sure. GSM is what shines yes but the component wines are made quite well there too and there are a couple of examples of Bordeaux styles. My favorites right now would be (with disclaimer that we prefer smaller places)
Thacher, Paix Sur Terre, Ecluse, Caliza, McPrice Myers, Dilecta. Tablas should be visited as a mecca. Halter Ranch is baller but really cool and doing important farming work.
Herman Story (downtown)… at Tin City Aaron and Desperada shine.
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Check out Tock.com and make sure to make reservations in advance. Almost every winery in Paso is requiring reservations and most if not all wineries use Tock.com.
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Welcome to FTC!!!
… and if in striking range of your drive, try to grab a seat at Bell’s.
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This is a good topic. Best closest restaurant to Paso… I’m going with the incredible Sea Chest Oyster Bar in Cambria… the lady organized her upcoming birthday trip around it
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My wife and I had a wonderful time in Paso and the vacation was absolutely improved based on the suggestions in this chain. Since we decided on Paso primarily to sample the wine, I’ll start with my vineyard observations - we hit 8 over 2.5 days.
Austin Hope was our favorite winery. Indeed, we decided to join their wine club. We were familiar with their cab prior to arrival but not much else. Top to bottom, their wines varied from good to great. In total we sampled 7 or 8 wines. If anything, and I’m nitpicking, their malbec was the weak point. It was fine, it’s just that we have easy access to significantly better versions from Argentina. Their syrah and graciano were standouts.
McPrice Myers (big thank you to Nemroz) never would have found this winery on our own and though that their selection was fantastic. We came home with a few bottles of the Altas Vinas (their version of the GSM).
Ecluse - another spectacular small winery we would not have found absent the big assist from Nemroz. They may have the best cab I’ve ever had and their Rendition (GSM) was similarly outstanding.
Daou - the vistas alone are worth the visit. I liked the wine more than expected but the price points are absurd. it was an ideal spot to waste away the late afternoon. While there we had a late lunch. The beet salad was nice; however, IMO, the impossible meat dolmas were a bit salty and dense. But that view!
Calcareous - the view was not quite as nice as Daou but I much preferred the wine. Also, while I haven’t done a lot of dining at wineries, my wife and I both enjoyed their lunch options. We had a very nice summer fruit salad, lamb lollipops and shared a very satisfying burger.
Tablas Creek was also a fun visit. Their versions of GSM (Esprit de Tablas) were quite tasty, and we took a few bottles with us. The Granache was also a standout.
We also stopped at Adelaida and Eberle. While we much preferred Adelaida to Eberle neither of these two matched what was sampled at the above-mentioned wineries.
We didn’t’ make it to tin city and weren’t able to do any sampling downtown. Have to save something for next time.
In terms of food, our best meals were ones grabbed on the road. On the drive up we stopped at Bell. While we didn’t have time for a sit-down lunch, we ordered to go. It was spectacular. I had a great beef cheek sando (nitpick - the bread was a bit dense) and my wife had a fresh and vibrant salad to which she added chicken. On the way back to LA we stopped at Industrial Eats in Buellton. The vibe is great, the food even better. We shared an oyster poyboy and a skirt steak pizza from their wood fired oven. If we didn’t have to rush back to scoop up the kiddos, we would have loved to have posted up with a few beers and sampled more of the menu.
In Paso we ate dinner at Hatch (great cocktails the food was fine but I don’t think we’d run back). We had the fried chicken (fine version), cauliflower (probably the best item we ordered) and grilled artichokes (this was a disappointment - tough outer leaves and under seasoned. The verion we make from chokes purchased at our local farmers market with nothing more than sea salt, olive oil and lemon are far superior).
Catch - a seafood place off the downtown park that was recommended by a number of the wineries served a nice dinner. The standout dish was the crabcake appetizer. We also split a snapper veracruz and sanddabs.
Finca - a fast casual Mexican place a few blocks from the downtown area serves a good burrito. The oak grilled octopus (not sufficiently charred) and ceviche (needed heat) were less successful.
Per the recommendations, we wanted to head out to Cambria for dinner but frankly, I was a bit too toasty from the winery visits and didn’t want to risk it.
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I lived in LA for 15 years, then up in the Bay Area for 3, then to OC since. Getting through LA can be a nightmare unless it’s the middle of the night. Still…… I’d rather drive to the Central Coast than to Temecula for wine tasting.
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I’ve never been to Temecula but going in 2 weeks. I can’t imagine the wine in Temecula being better than Paso and surrounding areas. It will be fun trying out a new vacation spot. I recall reading an article about a lot of Chinese investment money being poured into Temecula to make it a wine destination but I don’t think the Temecula climate is conducive. At least the drive will be less than 2 hours if the 91 and 15 cooperate which is no guarantee.
There are a few good wineries in the Temecula area but it’s always amazed me how many can make so-so wine even with grapes they bring in from other areas.
We’re in South OC so we go via Oceanside>Escondido, then North on 15. Ortega Highway is faster but I have intermittent Acrophobia issues so I never know if that will work.
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Had to Google acrophobia. Couldn’t understand why your fear of spiders would prevent you from taking Ortega Hwy. 
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Fantastic work. We used to love hatch years ago but ya they’re not they memorable anymore. Booking something for end of July and thinking about Laurent again I guess. Nothing thrilling
I found wines in Paso that I’ve wanted to bring home.
In my 6 trips out to Temecula, I’ve not felt that way. But I did find the wines (cabs and red blends) at Akash pleasant to drink with some snacks on the patio.
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Excited about another visit this week.
Findings from visit # 23.
Still hate going in the summer so we again stayed in very cool Cambria and did a day trip.
Once again I’m really glad that my lady and I are aligned on not being very much interested in major estates with showy facilities. We can find amazing wine at home, no problem. What we go for is beautiful, rustic atmosphere, connecting with nice people, especially when wine makers and growers are the ones pouring tastings. And it feels pretty great to support smaller businesses that are struggling because they’re out competed from marketing savvy or capital heavy companies.
So this time we started with Fratelli Perata (10:30 appt lol). The daughter of the owner is the defacto winemaker now was the only one on staff and was super insightful and talkative. We really loved their Italian offerings and bought a couple. Multigenerational wineries have history on the land and you can just feel their family connection throughout the conversations.
I knew it’d be hot out and wanted a place to just have a tall glass of white one after reds for breakfast, so i picked My Favorite Neighbor. A nice modern wine lounge, part of Booker winery next door. That of course goes against the small business diatribe above but it’s more casual than going to Booker (no hate, great juice there)… like we were walked in from the parking lot by a hostess while rolling our eyes. But a simple glass of nice white / rose wine was indeed a great idea. It’s right next to Caliza that we visited for years and I highly recommend. Their verticals of Syrah are legendary.
We enjoyed MFN the quick visit to and the bonus here was this taco truck that served up the crispiest confitiest carnitas! We fought over the dilla
Booker
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Then we drove up to our favorite in recent years, Thacher. Drove past Paix Sur Terre for the first time in years, just really wanted to go see the farm animals. We’ve been going there as city folks for years craving country life and we always take our wine down to their barn area and get away from the regular tasting room dynamic. A bottle of perfect GSM blends while kid feeds goats and chickens walk around us is dreamy. This time we opted for the Negrette . great again. It’s the old horse ranch of Lucky Baldwin and you can still pop in to the century+ old barn. Love this family but didn’t see them this time. They’ve got exciting projects going on and never stop evolving their wine offerings.
one of the more memorable window views
Then continued with our theme of small and new to us by visiting Tolo which was interesting. Wine maker served and shared about his wine. He’s doing them all with wild yeast which of course leads to funkier results, approaching a lof of what one finds in natural wines. But it’s wine wine. We dug it. Bought a couple because we’re not also the type who always have to buy to waive tasting fees (and try to not go to ones that need 4+ bottles purchased to waive fees)… We get it… but we’ve been going since the days of free tastings and free glasses at the end of it 
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Then we rolled on to our appointment at McPrice Myers which is a long time favorite. On the way we saw something new and had to pop in for a look around. It’s transitioning to new ownership and is pretty messy for now but it’s pretty up there… Though we’re not likely to go in for tastings. we’re vibe driven creatures. Don’t even remember the name. Greek looking but not greek.
McPrice though was excellent again. All the wines. Owner was cool as always and our server from Pasadena was a delight. We went through their catalog of wines and grabbed a well cellared big ole Magnum of a Cab, Syran, Petit verdot blend. Their GSM called Beautiful Earth is the flag ship and should be experienced.
That was it for tastings and after some pints and a walk around downtown we had dinner
at a place called Paso Terra. A seafood restaurant by an older French chef who still operates as if it’s the 80s and that’s precisely why we loved it! Classic food, perfect cuts of fish (best we had and we had seafood probably 5 times on the trip), mother sauces, sweet vouvray (ask for something drier or open one of yours). Somehow we never new of this place and totally dug it.
salmon tartare amuse bouche was so nice she ordered a full dish
stuffed squid with a very rich and surprisingly kicky sauce! love
Baramundi, sand dabs, and the special black cod for me all delivered!
more in a bit
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