We spent last weekend in Paso Robles touring their "Far Out Wineries" and tasting. There were 17 wineries on the Passport weekend. We hit 13 of them over three days. All proceeds of Passport sales and 5% of the weekend's wine sales are donated to the local Wellness Community.
I think I'll take a week or so and talk about a few of them each day.
We started at Villacana Winery. They offered cheese samples with the wines to Passport holders. Our friends had been tasting all day but a family commitment kept us from joining until around 4 pm. So Villacana was our first winery and their ... 8th, maybe? Or 9th. Needless to say, the levels of fun and levity were a bit different.
Anyway, on the way over Wine Snob Hubby had me read out loud the pages from Karen MacNeil's Wine Bible about tasting. I listened while I read and felt ready to tackle tasting and comparisions. MacNeil talked about how to gauge mouth feel, texture, and taste.
I sipped the first wine, a Vigonier, and everything went out of my head. I remembered to take short, quick sniffs, instead of one long inhale. I ran through a mental list of comparisions and came up blank. I couldn't tell you if it tasted like pineapple, wet cat, or citrus.
We moved on to the reds. They all ran together in my mind after one sip.
The grounds are lovely and the proprietors, Alex and Monica Villacana are gracious and generous hosts.
