WINING AND DINING IN PASO ROBLES

This week we are staying at the Vines RV Resort in Paso Robles, California while Allan checks out some of the wineries that produce Chardonnay.  The RV park is situated just a little north of Paso along Hwy 101 which is its only drawback.... listening to the sounds of tires rolling along.  But they have two pools and a spa, music entertainment on the weekends, their own wine tasting room, and lots of room in each site.  
Our trip up here was uneventful but long.  It was supposed to be four hours, but took six.  Mostly because of the congested traffic getting out of L.A. on a Friday and then because of the road construction further along towards Thousand Oaks and Santa Barbara.  

We took a short rest after arriving and then headed into town to Panolivo Bistro for their prix fixe dinner.  Lovely.  Allan had Beef Bourguignon and I had Chicken Cordon Bleu both prefaced by a delightful salad of mixed greens with their house salad dressing.  This was accompanied by their crusty home made yeast rolls and followed by our choice of any dessert on their menu.

 I had the Italian Panna Cotta and Allan had the Poached Pear with home made ice cream and Raspberry Coulis. 







The following day we started out on our own wine tour beginning with Shadow Run, a small family vineyard with a white Viognet.  It was a great start for two novices because we were the only people there for about one half hour and they helped us learn more about the wines of the region and pointed out wineries on the map where Allan could find Chardonnay.  It turned out that they were foreign movie buffs also and they were happy to hear about the French mystery series "Blood on the Vine" which was all about wines.  

Next, we stopped down the road at Olivas de Oro to sample olive oils and learned that 2000 of their olive trees had just been transported and transplanted from Corning, CA as the olive groves there had been sold.  The trees were 109 years old.  
We then traveled further north to Still Waters Winery which had a beautiful garden in the front of the tasting room.  In addition to purchasing some of their wines, we also purchased a big bag of freshly picked tomatoes.  

 Our final winery was the Tobin James which was a real bar scene.  It was located on Hwy 46 and was jammed with folks.  Just a short way up the road we stopped at the Broken Earth Gusto Gourmet for lunch  where we ordered sandwiches and sat out under their trees listening to live blues music.  A very relaxing way to finish off the day after all that hard work researching white wine.