Heading south from San Francisco we had two choices for our route across the bay from Marin. The Richmond-San Rafael bridge which is a very long double decker bridge and would take us through Oakland, or The Golden Gate Bridge, much shorter, which would take us directly through San Francisco, but on the outskirts, not the city core. The day before leaving a truck overturned on the longer bridge due to strong winds, so that sealed the deal for us. Besides, it is kind of cool to drive over the Golden Gate bridge. Once on the bridge you can see why they call it the ‘gateway’ to the city. It is at the entrance to the San Francisco Bay and the first thing you would see when entering from the oceanside.
Leaving the city you enter into gentle hills, mostly farmland, and small towns. There is a long stretch of highway that is sparsely populated, and only one rest stop on our route (very welcomed). 2 hours later we reach our next destination Paso Robles where we will be staying for 2 nights at Tobin James Cellars, a well known winery, and part of the Harvest Host RV club.
Checking in at the winery we are immediately welcomed and told to set up and come right back for some wine tastings -no problem there! At the tasting bar, our server Maddy explains that the winery is all about the wine and they do not charge for any tasting as she hands us a long list of wines available. The tasting room is beautiful with rich polished bars, stained glass windows, a relaxed atmosphere and a good hum of conversation and laughter. The staff seem to be just as happy as the patrons.
Maddy – Tobin James Cellars
She starts at the top of the list and just keeps pouring. The winery specializes in Zinfandel. Maddy knows quite a bit of the history of the winery and the region, so it is a treat to spend a couple hours getting to know the area which we were not at all familiar with as a wine region. We had not yet had dinner, so about halfway through the list we decide to quit for the night. We are invited to come back tomorrow to continue down the list.
Paso Robles, as we discover the next day, has hundreds of wineries. We take a drive into the hills and pass one after the other. Stopping at an olive ranch, we do a tasting and buy some lovely basil infused oil and a locally made lemon vinegar – our server put lids on the oils and vinegars we had tasted and labeled each one for us to take, along with the bread we had not even opened. They made a great addition to our dinner. Paso Robles is a nice city, spread out on both sides of the highway, with a large fairground in the centre of town, and a least one large mall with all the usual stores.
Back at the winery, we popped back in to continue our wine tastings. Again, warmly greeted, we spent another lovely couple hours chatting with patrons and servers (we could have gone through the entire list of wines if we had wanted) and then made our way merrily back to the trailer a few metres away.
Unfortunately, Miko was not thrilled with this stopover being in a parking lot she had no where to really hide, explore, or grass to eat.
Miko meows: 1 /5
Miko Meows 1/5.
Cakehead Contentment 5/5