October 21, 2025 • 57 mins
In this episode of Wine Camp, we packed our curiosity (and our corkscrew) for a trip to Paso Robles that turned into pure wine country magic. What started as a casual weekend became a swirl of unexpected moments — a spontaneous stop at a tasting room on the town square to kick things off, “breakfast wine”, a surprise cave tour deep beneath a winery, and. Add in a castle visit, beach town wanderings, twinkling lights, and a few classic Wine Camp shenanigans, and you’ve got one unforgettable Central Coast adventure. Pour a glass and come along for the ride. This one’s equal parts vino and adventure!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:06):
Welcome to Wine Camp.
Welcome back.
We're back.
I'm Monica.
SPEAKER_00 (00:12):
And I'm Neil.
SPEAKER_01 (00:13):
And we took a road trip.
SPEAKER_00 (00:15):
We did.
Full of shenanigans.
Yes, we did.
Uh Pasarobles.
Yes.
End of September we went to PasoRobles, which is without stops,
like five hours from here.
So is it that long of a drive?
Yeah.
It went by so fast.
It was because we were talkingthe whole time.
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (00:33):
Even we had lots of stops.
Even when we got in that loop onthe way back, we'll get to that
later.
SPEAKER_00 (00:37):
Monica has a uh has a map in her mind of where all
the Starbucks are.
SPEAKER_01 (00:43):
Yeah, so we hit the road.
Um oh Paso Robles.
So don't come at us, PasoRobles, Paso Robles, Paso
Robles, I don't know.
The locals say Paso Robles.
SPEAKER_00 (00:57):
And uh who am I to argue with a local?
Right.
So it's on the central coast ofCalifornia, which is like the
perfect weather conditions.
It's more inland, so it's alittle it gets hot, but it is
you know 30 minutes from beingat the ocean.
SPEAKER_01 (01:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:14):
And we spent a lot of time there.
SPEAKER_01 (01:15):
We did.
We spent a lot of time in town.
In town.
And at the ocean.
SPEAKER_00 (01:19):
And at the ocean.
SPEAKER_01 (01:20):
We did a lot.
So okay, so we headed down, andit was, it just happened to be
the day after the uh uh therapture.
The rapture.
SPEAKER_00 (01:33):
Neither of us were raptured, right?
I don't think that comes as ashock to anybody.
It certainly wasn't a shock tome.
SPEAKER_01 (01:40):
We talked a little bit, I told you.
Um I did check social media tomake sure my pastor was still
around.
Yeah.
And I checked on you.
So we know that was a falseprophet.
Um but the rapture, you we'renot supposed to know when it's
gonna happen anyway.
Exactly.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_00 (02:01):
And we were we, you know, what what really happened
is we were recording ourselvesdriving down there because we
thought, let's just try that aspart of the road trip.
But um, you know, technicaldifficulties, which is super
unfortunate because we werefreaking hilarious on the way
down talking about the raptureand all sorts of other stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (02:19):
But we we are boomers since we think that's to
be expected.
That's right.
Even we stopped to eat lunch onthe way down, and we stopped at
the Scottish restaurant.
Yes, McDonald's.
McDonald's.
And uh we tried to use themobile app.
SPEAKER_00 (02:34):
It was very difficult.
SPEAKER_01 (02:36):
We had a little kerfuffle.
SPEAKER_00 (02:37):
We tr we tried to get a hold of tech support, but
they were at work, so they theycouldn't help us.
SPEAKER_01 (02:44):
Oh my god.
Yeah, the time it took us tomake our orders on the mobile
app.
SPEAKER_00 (02:48):
I mean, gosh.
I mean and not just one order,two, because I had uh get a Big
Mac free on the app.
I'm like woot woot woot.
So I placed my order and ordereda uh a soda also, but all I got
was a soda because apparently Idid it wrong.
So then I had to place anotherorder to get my Big Mac, but you
(03:09):
had to order uh I have a minimumlike a dollar fifty order with
it or something.
So I had to order fries.
I don't even eat the fries,which they have great fries,
don't get me wrong.
But anyway, so I ended upspending more money than I
needed to just to get the freeBig Mac.
It was stupid.
SPEAKER_01 (03:27):
Because we really had our own drinks already,
yeah.
Water, coffee, whatever in thecar.
But no, we had to get thejacket.
SPEAKER_00 (03:34):
Well, it was a road trip, so and I love a road trip.
Oh, snaps for snacks.
Yeah, because no calories countwhen you're on a road trip.
So we were loaded for bear.
We had stuff in there that Ihaven't had in years.
I'm like, oh, now we're gonnahave to have some candy and
we're gonna crackers of it, meatand cheese and slami, and we had
(03:55):
um snacky things and all theprotein bars just to offset all
that other stuff.
Right, you know, and fruit.
SPEAKER_01 (04:03):
Yep, yep, and we probably had two dozen liquid
IVs.
Yes, because we both broughtenough for both of us, not
knowing.
SPEAKER_00 (04:10):
Yeah, that was used zero of everything.
Because we were walking aroundgoing, oh let's let's have lunch
there.
Yeah, let's stop here, let'sstop there.
Anyway, but we eventually madeit to Paso Rules, also known as
Paso.
SPEAKER_01 (04:26):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (04:27):
And um we had a nice little hotel room.
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (04:31):
So complimentary wine every night.
SPEAKER_00 (04:34):
And we're talking, oh, and then we have a new
stage, you know.
We've discussed before the Napapore, the sonoma pour the amador
pour and the backyard pour.
I'm gonna tell you that thathotel poured somewhere between
uh Amador and Backyard.
SPEAKER_01 (04:50):
Yeah, it was huge.
Those were big pours.
Um, yeah, so uh the wine wasdecent at the hotel for being
hotel complimentary wine.
And I understand the owner hasan interest in wine, either he
makes it or he, I don't know,something the owner.
But this wasn't his wine.
That's what they told me at thedesk.
Oh, it was his wine.
(05:11):
That's why they had the wine ontap.
Oh, which says a lot, right?
That means it's a big vat of itunderneath the cabinet.
I did not see a box under thecabinet when she opened it.
SPEAKER_00 (05:23):
She was having trouble getting it going.
Um, yeah.
I think she was having troubleturning it off.
SPEAKER_01 (05:28):
Yeah, really poor, clearly.
I mean, they were to the rim.
It was funny.
That's how my husband pours aglass of wine.
On the rare occasion.
SPEAKER_00 (05:37):
It's a mega glass of wine, right?
Like a Johnny Depp testimonytype of thing.
It's a mega glass of wine.
SPEAKER_01 (05:47):
Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00 (05:48):
So we yeah, we finally made it to to Pascal
Robles and got checked in at thehotel, and then we decided, hey,
let's go to the downtown square.
It's on the on the park, whichlike all these little old towns
have, up and down the ghost.
And so we were uh going there,we were gonna go get some dinner
and just kind of look around.
(06:08):
We had we had a couple placesthat we wanted to go.
One was we wanted to try thiswine called Troublemaker, right?
Because my son, the professionalbass fisherman, he travels with
a guy who um is sponsored byTroublemaker.
SPEAKER_01 (06:27):
Right.
So we get all these little thislittle bits of information.
You gotta go try Troublemaker.
SPEAKER_00 (06:32):
Yeah, you gotta go there.
They're really good.
It's um it's made by um this uhAustin Hope fellow.
And so anyway, we we're like,yeah, that okay, but that's one
of the places we want to go.
So we start off walking aroundthe square.
Oh, we've got like 50 feet.
I mean, I start off, weliterally just started off, we
parked and stepped on thesidewalk.
Yeah.
And I'm like, well, lookyMonica.
(06:54):
A bar.
It's not just a bar, it's atasting room.
Yeah, a window on the world, awindow on the park.
And that's really all it was.
It's like they threw up themetal um um like a garage door.
Like a garage door, and voila, atasting room.
SPEAKER_01 (07:11):
Yeah, it was like a like a tasting bar right there
on the sidewalk.
It reminded me a little bit ofwhen I was in New Orleans many,
many years ago, there were bars,and I'm using air quotes.
Um, basically it was like acloset.
The guy would open the door andhe had a keg with a counter,
like a plywood counter.
(07:31):
Uh, and he had a sign that saidcheap ass beer is two dollars.
SPEAKER_00 (07:36):
And I don't know why it seems much more charming in
Italy when they have a littlelittle little like teeny tiny
door, little like like like acupboard door.
Yeah, and you knock on it.
And you can get a glass of wineor or an affogato or something
like that.
But we so anyway, we went and wesaid, Hey, let's taste some
(07:57):
wine.
There were a lot of other peopledoing that.
And it turned out it was theAustin Hope tasting room.
So we got our troublemaker and Idon't know what else I bought.
What else did I buy?
I bought a couple of I boughtsome other wine too.
Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_01 (08:12):
Because I was starting out strong.
Right.
So we sat there and chatted withum Jody.
Jody.
Jody and Allie.
And Allie, right, right.
Yeah, very sweet ladies.
Yeah, and that place is calledHope on Park.
Yes.
We did pick up one of theirpamphlets.
Um, anyway, they were absolutelystill lovely.
SPEAKER_00 (08:34):
So and the people that we were chatting with while
we were there.
Oh, there is just something veryuh communal about uh, you know,
tasting wine.
You just can chat with anybody.
Yes.
And um you know what else theydo?
I don't know if you picked up onthis, Monica.
It's like if you wanted to justget a little glass of wine,
they'd put it in a to-go cup,and you can take it, no lid,
over to the park and drink it atthe park.
SPEAKER_01 (08:56):
They did have a lid.
Oh, did they have a lid?
They did have a lid so you don'tspill in the park?
Right, right, right.
Little plastic glass of winewith a lid, and you could get it
to go.
And they also made some winecocktails there.
So it was we didn't have those,but very curious.
But yeah, speaking of the peoplethat we chatted with, but
(09:16):
remember Pam?
I yes, a lovely lady, supersweet.
She was telling us, I think shemoved down here from the Bay
Area, I think, and then she wastelling us about a woman she
knows.
And I'm not gonna name namesbecause I accidentally said
Pam's name already.
SPEAKER_00 (09:35):
You didn't give her a last name.
No, I did not.
Pam Wink.
SPEAKER_01 (09:39):
Yeah.
She was telling this funnystory.
I don't even know how we got onthe subject, but this little old
lady, relative of hers, who hadbeen out walking her dog or
something, or at the grocerystore.
She was at the grocery store,and this young man, I think the
woman is in her 80s.
Yes.
And this young man at thegrocery store, you know, made
(10:01):
eye contact with her, smiled andsaid hello with a big smile.
And she smiled and said helloright back, and then she told
Pam later, basically, I think Istill got it because I think I
wanted to with him.
SPEAKER_00 (10:18):
Yeah, I think she was like pushing 90 or
something.
Good for her.
You go, girl.
Good for you.
Oh my god, how did we get Idon't know.
That's the thing.
When you're in these places,first off, the alcohol's
flowing.
Right.
And so so are the words.
It's just it just goes hand inhand.
SPEAKER_01 (10:36):
Yeah, let's see.
Once the wine starts flowing,yeah, I think lose lips.
But she was cute.
SPEAKER_00 (10:41):
Another thing about Austin Hope, they have the best
wine-carrying bags.
SPEAKER_01 (10:46):
Oh, we definitely have to put a picture of that
bag on the window.
SPEAKER_00 (10:50):
Oh my gosh, it's the best bag.
It's like a really heavy-dutyfelt.
Yeah.
And then like a leather airquotes, I guess.
A strap on it.
Yeah.
It's like the best bag ever.
SPEAKER_01 (11:02):
And it's bright orange.
SPEAKER_00 (11:04):
Bright orange.
SPEAKER_01 (11:04):
Yeah, it's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00 (11:05):
I use it for my trick-or-treating bag.
Or you can look around and peepat the neighborhood and people
can fill it up with wine.
SPEAKER_01 (11:11):
Four or six.
I don't remember how many ithelped.
Oh, yeah, that's perfect.
Another thing about Austin Hopeis Jody took us into the back
room.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
That location where they curatejust amazing wine experiences.
SPEAKER_00 (11:27):
Oh my gosh.
Because it looks like it's justthat front, right?
The countertop and you know, alittle place for you to stand
and taste the wine.
But behind the door, it's likethe Wizard of Oz is back there,
right?
And beautiful.
They, like you said, they haveso many tastes and experiences.
They have different rooms,different um seating areas.
(11:50):
And you it's amazing all thedifferent ways that you you have
to experience their wine.
Right.
In a private setting.
SPEAKER_01 (11:59):
Right.
And I'm sure you have to makereservations for those
experiences.
SPEAKER_00 (12:02):
We didn't even get to the winery itself.
Yeah.
We just went to that place.
SPEAKER_01 (12:06):
Yeah.
So then we went to dinner.
Yes.
And we had dinner at a littlerestaurant called Taste.
So good.
Yeah.
Okay.
So we weren't that hungrybecause we had had Scottish food
for lunch.
That's right.
SPEAKER_00 (12:20):
Who knew Scottish food could be so filling?
SPEAKER_01 (12:24):
The big Mackin Fright.
And then uh so we weren't thathungry.
So we were looking at the menu.
Everything looked so good.
SPEAKER_00 (12:31):
And and this place is like a recommended place too.
It's right on the on the square.
Um, and we'd heard about itbefore, so we were pretty happy
when we could get a table.
Oh, key note though, we werethere, we started midweek.
Oh, yeah.
So we didn't have to worry aboutweekend crowds or anything.
SPEAKER_01 (12:50):
Right.
So yeah, so that's probably whywe got right in there for
dinner.
And I remember looking at themenu, and they had not one, not
two, three or four differentBrussels sprouts.
Four types of Brussels sprouts.
And you and I do love us someBrussels sprouts.
We do indeed.
So uh, you know, we decided toget a couple appetizers.
We thought, man, should we get athird one?
SPEAKER_00 (13:10):
Yeah, we really went back and forth on it and decided
let's just get two to start.
SPEAKER_01 (13:15):
And we got water because at that point we'd been
tasting it Austin Hope.
It's important to stay hydrated.
unknown (13:20):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (13:22):
Uh who I have never seen a full meal of Brussels
sprouts.
Fat flatter was huge and piledhigh.
SPEAKER_00 (13:31):
Right.
And it was delicious.
And I'm trying to think, so theywere uh um the Brussels sprouts
were roasted.
Yeah.
And they had on uh wesubstituted the cheese that they
had for a goat cheese.
SPEAKER_01 (13:45):
Right, right.
It was gonna be feta.
SPEAKER_00 (13:47):
Yeah, it was gonna be feta, which is fine.
But we used uh waitressrecommended uh substituting it
for goat cheese for a more mildflavor, and I believe there's
probably some balsamic involved.
Yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_01 (13:58):
And I don't remember what else was on that.
SPEAKER_00 (14:00):
And there was all sorts of it was delicious.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (14:03):
So we had um a full meal of Brussels sprows, and
then we ordered the brie.
SPEAKER_00 (14:09):
Yes again.
SPEAKER_01 (14:10):
My god charcuterie board.
SPEAKER_00 (14:12):
It's important to get your protein in the form of
cheese, I guess.
It was a full charcuterie board.
It was huge.
Yeah.
So uh it was, I mean, honestly,when I think of like let's get
an appetizer, you know, they'reusually like small plate, right?
Maybe they used to be appetizersand then they came along with
appetizers and small plates.
And now they now there's justoptions.
(14:33):
So but these appetizers werelike for a crowd.
Yeah.
It was a platter, like a I wishwe'd had some warning.
SPEAKER_01 (14:41):
Uh we didn't eat it.
SPEAKER_00 (14:42):
Because we left a lot of it behind.
SPEAKER_01 (14:43):
We did, because we didn't have anywhere to save it.
Um, but there was a family nextto us, and I looked over at what
they were eating, and I guessthey just had regular plates of
food because it looked verynormal.
But anyway, it was delicious.
I highly recommend it.
Taste taste.
Yeah, so we went there, and thenwhat else did we do?
SPEAKER_00 (15:02):
We went to a speakeasy.
We sure did.
How fun was that?
SPEAKER_01 (15:09):
Yes, that was my first time ever doing that.
SPEAKER_00 (15:11):
And we've been talking about doing that three
times, yes.
SPEAKER_01 (15:14):
Do a circle, no, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:16):
It's like do the secret handshake, all this.
Yeah.
We went to the speakeasy, and umwhat was crazy about it is like
I was like, let's, you know, Ithought we were just going
through the hoops, right?
Knock, yeah, they open the door,you know, all this cryptic
stuff, and but no, they youknock, they open the door, and
they go, We'll be back.
(15:38):
I was like, oh, okay.
Because I'm like, they must behaving to clean a table.
Yeah, no, but we walked in, itwasn't a big place at all.
But it was moody.
SPEAKER_01 (15:48):
Yeah, it was very cool.
SPEAKER_00 (15:50):
Uh, and we had to give up our phones.
Yes, that was hard, not not forany reason other than uh do I
know you?
SPEAKER_01 (15:59):
I wanted to take pictures.
I know I wanted pictures.
SPEAKER_00 (16:02):
We think you're gonna give some stranger my
phone, but we don't give thestranger our phone.
SPEAKER_01 (16:05):
No, no.
SPEAKER_00 (16:06):
So they take it and they put it in this uh rubbery
envelope of a thing, and thenlatch it close, and it's like
when you go to, I don't know,Kohl's and they have the
magnetic lock on the clothes, soit goes beep, beep, beep, beep.
Um, it's like that.
And so they have to have theapparatus to open it.
(16:27):
So then they give it back toyou, you know, and and you're
just sitting there with thisphone you can't access.
And yeah, we kept wanting toaccess our phones because uh we
want to look stuff up, right?
We want to take a picture, butMonica, tell tell the listeners
why they don't want you to haveyour phone.
Well, hell, I don't know why.
Oh shoot.
That was like bumble bleed.
(16:49):
Um because they want you to bein the moment.
Oh my god.
What is in your water bottle?
Is it water?
Is it what?
Austin Hope.
No, they want you to be in themoment and experience because
even the bartenders are prettymuch in character and very
engaging because it was sointimate.
SPEAKER_01 (17:11):
Such an well, and we got seated at the bar, which was
very cool.
SPEAKER_00 (17:13):
Which is I really like I like to sit at a bar.
Yeah.
I mean, it's fun when you have ahuge group to be at your table
and but if it's just a couple ofpeople, sit at the bar.
You engage with the bartenders,you engage with the other people
at the bar.
It's again more community-based.
SPEAKER_01 (17:28):
Yeah, yeah.
So the bartender was, you know,very chatty.
And yeah, there we sat with ourphones locked in these bag pouch
things.
Um, kept saying, Oh, we shouldlook, oh, can't do that.
Can't look that up, can't dothis.
Get a picture, can't do that.
Oh my god, we should take apicture of us.
SPEAKER_00 (17:45):
Oh, we can't take a picture of it.
SPEAKER_01 (17:46):
I feel like it took me a minute to let go of that.
SPEAKER_00 (17:49):
But once you do, it's really nice to to
disconnect because you do getengaged easier with other
people.
There aren't distractions andyou do get to be in the moment.
I think there's also thisheightened sense, uh, well,
heightened senses because theymade some unique drinks at this
bar.
I had a grasshopper just becauseI felt like well, that's kind of
(18:10):
trendy for the you know,speakeasy type of thing.
But then they had a slew of oldfashions which are super popular
again.
SPEAKER_01 (18:18):
Yeah, and I had the like maple pecan, I had the
butter pecan old fashioned.
Yeah.
And I'm not really a whatever'sin that distilled bourbon.
SPEAKER_00 (18:30):
It's not not distilled alcohol, it's not your
thing.
SPEAKER_01 (18:32):
Yeah, not really.
But that was good.
It was so good that I hadanother one the next night at
the restaurant that's in frontof that that it's attached to.
SPEAKER_00 (18:39):
And they they um so they, you know, like crispied
up, burnt up some cinnamon.
Yeah.
And then they um, I don't know,they smoked some other stuff in
underneath the cake on like it'slike a cake platter.
So on the wood on top.
A cloche.
I don't care.
It's the lid of a cake plate.
I don't care what you call it.
I'm like, I'm like, at my house,that's a cake plate with a lid,
(19:02):
glass dome on it.
A wooden base and the glassglass.
SPEAKER_01 (19:06):
That's a cake platter.
No, it's a it's a cloche.
It's a wooden base with acloche, yeah.
That we set things on fire witha couple of things.
Or you could put a cake in it.
SPEAKER_00 (19:17):
Um, but that was a really it was it's a whole
presentation when they do it.
I mean, they really go throughthe the moves on.
SPEAKER_01 (19:24):
And it was good.
Um you know when when you talkedabout how they came to the door,
we knocked on the door, thefront door, the woman came to
the door, and she how many, andshe goes, I'll be right back.
It was a little Wizard ofOz-ish.
And then the smoke and magic andstuff the bartender was doing
behind the bar.
That was kind of cool too.
(19:45):
Um, yeah, a little bit it wasmoody, like you said, very
moody.
It was cool.
SPEAKER_00 (19:49):
So yeah, and they had like um little snugs where
people were like sitting in, youknow, like a booth.
Yeah, snug.
SPEAKER_01 (19:58):
Oh, that's a new word, but that's a very cool
word.
SPEAKER_00 (20:01):
A snug is like um I learned this when I went to
Ireland.
Oh back in the day, like youknow, a hundred something years
ago, right?
Um, oh, and the women would goto the bar, they can be really
seen if they put them in alittle tiny like alcove room.
Snug.
And so people will go into snugsand have like private
(20:22):
conversations and and all that.
So yeah.
I think I saw something likethat.
Pinky blinders, probably.
Pinky blinders.
A man with the big red hat orwhatever.
Yeah, that was cool.
SPEAKER_01 (20:37):
Okay, snug.
Yeah.
Plether of useless information.
Okay, so the speake was called1122 speakeasy.
And it's behind PappyMcGregor's.
And Pappy McGregor's is right,well, look it up on Google it.
SPEAKER_00 (20:54):
Listen, if you went to the square, you'd see the
sign that said, Oh, PappyMcGregor's.
But you walk, you you I guessyou can walk through Pappy
McGregor's.
SPEAKER_01 (21:01):
To go to the back side of the building.
SPEAKER_00 (21:02):
Backside, but if you want to get into the speakeas,
you have to go outside onto thatother st down the alley.
Yeah.
Down an alley.
Yeah, we did have to go down.
Um and then to the other street.
SPEAKER_01 (21:13):
In the hood of Paso Robles.
So the next day.
Oh, we went to Cambria to gowalk around.
SPEAKER_00 (21:23):
Yes, we did.
SPEAKER_01 (21:24):
Yeah, that little town too.
It's such a cute little town.
Yeah.
On the between Paso and theocean, somewhere.
SPEAKER_00 (21:30):
That's actually, yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01 (21:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (21:32):
It's it's such a cute little town.
We did do that.
We wandered through there alittle bit.
Um shops.
We also went to Cayucos.
Oh, but the day we went toCambria, after we did that, we
went and toured Hearst Castle.
Oh, was that's the day we wentto because then we drove to San
uh San Simeon, where HearstCastle is.
You know, for me it was aspecial treat because um I've
(21:54):
been to these places before, butyou haven't.
I felt like quite the tourguide.
Yes, you was.
You were cool.
Uh Hearst Castle, man.
It's it's the uh it's the summercottages of Rhode Island on the
west coast.
You know, it's those it's thosebig big mansion type things.
SPEAKER_01 (22:11):
So opul.
He was so over the top andopulent and wasteful.
SPEAKER_00 (22:19):
Interesting thing that they said on that tour was
that uh after his dad died, hismom was withholding the money
from him because she was afraidthat he would spend it foolishly
and waste it all.
And he did.
I mean, though it's the stuff hehauled in from Europe to build
(22:42):
this place and the amount oftimes that they redid the
construction to to modify.
I mean, the change orders onthat must have been crazy.
But the view's spectacular.
It is.
Um, I was surprised that so wewent to uh the pool that's below
the tennis court.
(23:02):
Yes, and it's a gorgeous indoorindoor pool, um, lots of
beautiful tile and gold.
Lots of gold.
SPEAKER_01 (23:11):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (23:11):
Um, but uh not only was that for the use of the gas,
but also the staff could usethat pool.
I was very surprised by that.
But hey, it's probably reallyhard to get people to come all
the way out to San Simeon andand work like that back then.
There was very little thetransportation wasn't easy.
(23:33):
And and uh what did the busstars?
SPEAKER_01 (23:36):
So you you drive up to the visitor center, it's now
run by the state parks, but yes,it's five miles of a windy road
up the hill on a bus that getsright up on the edge.
Yes, and there are someprecarious and what I also loved
about going to visit that is Iremembered that there's a tie
(24:00):
between the William RandolphHearst and New Clairvaux Winery.
That's right.
Which uh I don't know whatepisode it is, but we had a
couple of episodes on the NewClairvaux Winery where um the
Trappist Cistercian monks have amonastery, and there's a story.
If you want to hear the wholestory, go listen to um those
(24:22):
episodes.
But uh Hearst is the one whobought the stones, had a
monaster a Trapez Cistercianmonastery in Spain,
disassembled, schlepped orshipped all those stones over to
San Francisco.
And then schlepped.
Yeah, shipped and thenschlepped.
And uh the story is eventuallygot the stones got left in uh
(24:44):
Golden Gate Park, and later thestones made their way to um Vina
Vina, the little teeny town.
Don't blink, yep, you'll passthat.
That was it.
That was Vina to the littleteeny tiny mount town of Vina
and rebuilt as their chapterhouse in uh church.
Absolutely beautiful, but thatwas a connection, so that was a
(25:07):
really cool thing.
SPEAKER_00 (25:08):
Yeah.
And and um also uh he had like afull-on zoo there, like
roaming-free zebras, and you canstill see zebras today, even
though most of the all thoseanimals are gone, the zebras
apparently escaped.
And are they descendants of theoriginal zebras?
No, they don't grow zebras herenaturally, of course they're
descendants.
SPEAKER_01 (25:29):
But yeah, no, I mean, did he bring over new
zebras?
No, or somebody bring over newzebras, or these are the zebras.
SPEAKER_00 (25:35):
These are those this is those are those zebras.
That's what I meant.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
It's the descendants of firstcastle.
Yeah.
There's zebras and there's someother stuff, some sort of like
antelope or something that'sthere as well.
But I didn't see them, but wedid see the zebras on our way
down the windy road back to theparking.
SPEAKER_01 (25:55):
And then I think the next day we started out with a
breakfast wine at LXV.
SPEAKER_00 (26:02):
Cool place.
Yeah.
Um, the the owners uh are um uhNita and hold on, I have their
names.
Yeah, Nita and I can't rememberhis name.
SPEAKER_01 (26:13):
Nita and K Kunal Mittal.
Um and they are well, we didn'tget to meet Kunal, but Nita was
there.
SPEAKER_00 (26:21):
She was very involved in the tasting
experience.
Because the tasting experienceinstead of just going to the
taste, we wanted to do a specialexperience, and it was a wine
pairing with spices.
SPEAKER_01 (26:33):
Yes, yeah, that was really awesome.
SPEAKER_00 (26:35):
And so um they're Indian.
Yeah, and uh I think she saidthey went to uh Berkeley, yeah,
I think it was and theygraduated with like big degrees,
right?
But they loved wine so much andtraveling for wine that they
decided to get into the wineindustry and start making wine.
Apparently, their parents werenot so happy about that after
getting those big degrees, buthere they are killing it.
(26:58):
But it was really neat becausethe spices they had us go in
order, they were put on um agoat sheep's milk a sheep's milk
cheese, so it was a littleharder.
Um just little bites, and um, wetasted in a certain order, and
uh the spices they had a verylike Indian flavor to them, a
(27:19):
variety of them.
Like there was the butterchicken.
I love butter chicken at theIndian restaurants, but they had
the seasonings for that.
That was the last one we tasted,right?
And a variety of them, anyway,so good, and you could buy the
spices, so we did, we did, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (27:34):
So LXV, um, beautiful little tasting room,
very intimate, and it was agreat experience, and their
wines are delicious.
I don't know who's making theirwines, but um, I don't know who
their winemaker is, I shouldsay.
Uh, but delicious.
I bought several bottles of TheSpell, and I think you bought
(27:54):
The Secret and The Spell or Sohighly recommend LXV.
In fact, I think it was a coupledays before we were going, I
came across um a video on TikTokof a young woman saying, I'm
going to Paso this weekend.
That's right.
Does anyone haverecommendations?
So I saved it.
I said, We're gonna, we're goingstraight to the notes and taking
(28:16):
recommendations.
And this is one of therecommendations.
SPEAKER_00 (28:18):
And taste was also, yes, taste.
SPEAKER_01 (28:20):
Austin Home.
Yeah, we pretty much wrote onher tails.
Yeah, we didn't even see her.
We were kind of on the lookoutfor her, but we didn't see her,
whoever you are.
Um, but yeah, that was one ofthe recommendations, and it did
not disappoint, I'm telling you.
SPEAKER_00 (28:35):
And was that the night we went to Censario?
SPEAKER_01 (28:38):
Yes, yes, we went to the light show, but we did
something else after thisbecause this was breakfast wine.
SPEAKER_00 (28:44):
Yeah, that was breakfast wine.
We did something else.
SPEAKER_01 (28:47):
I thought it was funny.
A lot of wineries there open at10.
We made this reservation for 11or something like that.
SPEAKER_00 (28:52):
So what else did we do?
Oh no, we went to I don't know,we we did a lot of stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (28:58):
We went back to the coast, I think.
SPEAKER_00 (29:00):
I think we went to Caillou Coast that day.
SPEAKER_01 (29:01):
Yeah, I think you're right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (29:03):
Another cute little town.
Yeah, very cute, little artsytype of town.
Just walked around a little bit,walked around, poked our head at
some shops, had a little Nosh.
SPEAKER_01 (29:14):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (29:14):
Yeah, that was fun.
Recommend that.
And then and then we came back.
I we got more hotel wine.
We got more hotel wine.
And then and then we went toCensario.
SPEAKER_01 (29:24):
Yeah.
Cool place.
That's uh number onerecommendation.
It's a light show.
And again, you've been therebefore, but how long ago?
SPEAKER_00 (29:34):
Um, I was there in 2020.
And um So it's these L thisartist um got this hillside, so
the hillsides are tucked way in,so you don't get any residual
lights like from roads oranything like that.
And Paso Robles has rollinghills.
(29:55):
Uh huh.
And so that's really pretty.
They used to be covered withcows before they were covered
with grapes.
But now there's still nowthere's less grapes, but
whatever.
But anyway, so these rollinghills and they're covered with
these hundreds of thousands ofLED lights that just change
colors.
So you're up there and you go inand they have when I first went,
(30:16):
that's all they had was justthose rolling hills and I think
like a little portable bar.
Yeah.
Um but that was about it.
SPEAKER_01 (30:22):
But now so much more.
And now they have well, first ofall, there's a whole building
and a stage, like a bandstand.
There was a band there, lots oftables to sit at, a place to get
drinks, another place for food.
And then they had a VIP section,which we weren't really that
familiar with.
They apparently didn't know whowe are.
(30:42):
Anyway, so then you start.
Um we got there before thesunset.
SPEAKER_00 (30:46):
Which was important because I think that the view
with the sun setting throughthose hills, it's all golden,
right?
And then the the sunset comes,and then as the sun sets, the
lights come on.
Right.
And they have a lot of benchesaround the pathways now to sit
on.
SPEAKER_01 (30:59):
Right, right.
So you can walk around, it'saccessible and walk around, um,
and then these lights on thehillside, and then you walk
through, just follow the path.
Then you come to an area wherethere's several other areas now.
Um, there was one where they hadthey look like well, they were
fishing rods, I think.
SPEAKER_00 (31:17):
Yeah, it was called the fishing hole, is that area
of their exhibit.
And I think what they do is umbecause they're what I what I
heard that they do is that theyum get I'll just call them bids
or from uh artists on ideas ofwhat to do.
And then they select and theyimplement it.
Yeah.
So this one, I don't know ifthere was water in there or not.
(31:39):
I don't think so.
I don't know.
It was dark, I couldn't see.
SPEAKER_01 (31:42):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:42):
But it's like, I don't know, probably a hundred
or so fishing rods with even thelittle eyes on it for the lines
to go through, which is wherethe LED light went through.
SPEAKER_01 (31:52):
And it's just and they were like set up like a fan
of fishing rods.
Did I call them fishing poles atfirst?
I think you can call them eitherone.
Oh no, not my house.
SPEAKER_00 (32:04):
And hole.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:05):
My husband always says it's a rod.
SPEAKER_00 (32:07):
Is that what Rod says?
SPEAKER_01 (32:08):
My husband Rod says he's the rod.
Um so there was the gone fishingor whatever section.
Absolutely beautiful.
And then there was another onewhere they had these um d
displays of wine bottles.
Right.
Almost they were like towers.
Yeah, like round cylinder typetowers.
(32:30):
But they're all wine bottles,right?
All wine bottles and lit fromthe inside and music.
SPEAKER_00 (32:34):
Music playing.
It was really cool, right?
SPEAKER_01 (32:37):
Beautiful.
SPEAKER_00 (32:37):
It's really cool, and you can walk through all
those towers and just get thefull experience of the music and
and all.
And like like you said, it's allcompletely accessible,
wheelchair accessible andeverything.
Yeah.
And so then they had another onethat was the fireflies.
So on a hillside.
Oh, yeah.
There's all these little tinywhite, these tiny tiny lights,
(33:00):
but then the breeze catches thathillside and they move back and
forth.
Like fireflies.
Like fireflies.
SPEAKER_01 (33:06):
That was very beautiful, too.
And I think our favorite one wasit's like almost like an
umbrella of LED lights with acylinder in the middle, and then
they just change color, but themusic there was so moving.
SPEAKER_00 (33:20):
It was like some of it was like classical, like it
was orchestral, yeah, right.
Yeah, it was as if orchestra anorchestra was playing, and the
all those, I don't know, likeumbrellas or mushrooms or
whatever they were supposed tobe, yeah.
They changed color um dependingon the music and the notes and
(33:40):
the speed.
They're all different, like someare the like for the bass and
and some are the the treble andall that.
So and then they have tables setup in there that you can just go
with your drinker or whateversit at.
We probably were in there forlike an hour.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just sitting there and it's verymoving.
SPEAKER_01 (33:56):
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (33:58):
And then the last one is um, like have you seen
those Moroccan lanterns?
That's right, with the cutouts.
With the cutouts.
And uh that was a veryinteractive one where you can
spin these things around.
They're huge.
SPEAKER_01 (34:14):
Right, right.
They're like eight, nine feettall or something.
SPEAKER_00 (34:16):
And you can spin them around and then the lights
can go, don't go getting dizzy.
SPEAKER_01 (34:19):
Yeah, you could get dizzy.
SPEAKER_00 (34:21):
And then they had uh some of them look like a half a
dome, and then they had thoseinside, and you could sit in
there and just experience again,music's playing.
Yeah, beautiful.
So cool.
SPEAKER_01 (34:31):
And then we ran into the lady, uh, what's her name?
Uh Kathy.
Yeah, Kathy.
Okay, so we met Kathy when wewalked in to first got there.
SPEAKER_00 (34:41):
Well, okay, we were standing in line at the bar.
But I'm sure you guys all knewthat.
SPEAKER_01 (34:47):
As one does.
Um so we're standing in line atthe bar and we were looking at
the wine selections because wewanted to get glasses of wine,
and this woman was standingbehind us or something, and she
said, I don't, in her cutesouthern accent, I don't know
anything about Kentucky orsomething.
She's from Kentucky.
I don't know anything aboutwine.
I guess I I said, Well, whatkind of wine do you like?
Do you like white or red?
(35:08):
She said, Well, I like whiteZinfandel.
I said, Do you're in winecountry, California?
I was teasing her.
I said, Do not say that out loudhere.
So anyway, we had a good laugh,went about our way.
And then at that last stage ofthe display, we saw her and her
son.
Yes.
And so we went up to her to sayhello, and she told her son,
(35:30):
these are the ladies that toldme not to say that.
I didn't even know out loud.
And we sat and had a lovelyconversation.
Yeah, they were lovely.
Again, Facebook because we'remillennial.
SPEAKER_00 (35:42):
I mean, I was a millennial.
I'm Generation Jones.
SPEAKER_01 (35:47):
So uh so highly recommend Sensoria.
SPEAKER_00 (35:52):
Oh, very cool place.
Well, they and they said theyhave plans to expand even more.
Yeah, I was talking to one ofthe guys that worked there, and
he said um he pointed out thisone particular hillside, and he
said they're gonna extend thelights up to this hillside so it
looks like an infinity lightsinto infinity, and then they're
gonna build a hotel up there.
SPEAKER_01 (36:13):
Yeah, yeah.
And then there's some uh plansfor a housing development to go
in nearby, which is interesting.
But I mean it's a big it there'snothing up there in those hills.
SPEAKER_00 (36:24):
No cows, no grapes, you know, only lights.
Just lights, just twinklylights, which uh are my
favorite.
SPEAKER_01 (36:31):
Right, as we yeah, we learned everything sparkly
and twinkly now.
Another thing we did while wewere there is we hit a couple of
thrift stores because you know Ilike to thrift.
And I you were so kind to goalong with me.
Let me show you.
SPEAKER_00 (36:45):
You showed me the beautiful, the beautiful uh I
desanitized when I came out.
I was like, where's the handsanitizer?
SPEAKER_01 (36:55):
You showed me the beautiful towns and the light
show, and I showed you thegoodwill.
SPEAKER_00 (37:02):
Goodwills.
No, that was cool.
That was funny.
One man's trash is another man'streasure.
That's true.
That's true.
SPEAKER_01 (37:10):
We the next day we went back to um the ocean
because we love it.
SPEAKER_00 (37:16):
As we call it in California, the coast, as
opposed as opposed to the east,eastern United States.
I call it the shore.
The shore, okay.
SPEAKER_01 (37:23):
We have a coast, they have a short time.
We have a coast, they have ashore.
How funny.
It's funny those terms that youuse.
Uh we went to what was thatother time?
Morro Bay.
Morro Bay.
We went to Morro Bay.
And um thick fog.
We haven't seen thick fog likethat in a long time.
That's going through the hills.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (37:40):
It was it was it was like white out.
SPEAKER_01 (37:43):
Yeah, yeah.
It was you gotta follow thatwhite line on the side of the
road kind of driving.
SPEAKER_00 (37:48):
You did a great job.
Thank you.
We made it back safely.
SPEAKER_01 (37:53):
We went out to the rock, Morrow Rock, that day, and
we watched some surfers.
That was very cool.
Um, walked around that town alittle bit again.
SPEAKER_00 (38:02):
Oh, we went to my favorite little garden shop
there.
SPEAKER_01 (38:05):
Overpriced.
SPEAKER_00 (38:06):
I cannot afford it, but I get lots of ideas.
I know, and you did, you didrecreate a little I did.
One year I saw I found this,they had this cute little
plastic lantern with a fakeflame in it, and they had it
decorated on top with garlandystuff for Christmas, and I think
they wanted like eighty-fivedollars for it.
What?
And um, so I made me one.
(38:28):
I ordered the eight dollar thingfrom from Amazon, and I had some
leftover garland stuff.
And you zhit it so much it up,and you loved it.
I made you one.
I know, I loved it, I know, andit didn't even cost me$85.
SPEAKER_01 (38:41):
Battery-powered little flame that doesn't give
off heat, but no ambiance.
That's right.
SPEAKER_00 (38:46):
It's all about the ambiance.
But it's a cute store, they havesome great stuff, it smells
really good in there.
SPEAKER_01 (38:51):
Yeah, yeah, they have oh beautiful things.
SPEAKER_00 (38:53):
Yeah, Morrow Bay is pretty cool.
We went over to the rock, walkedaround the rock.
Yeah, not on it.
You're not allowed on it.
It's huge.
Plus, you don't want to goanywhere, it's covered with
seagulls centuries of seagullpoo.
SPEAKER_01 (39:05):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (39:05):
Um, but what we did realize, and I believe it was
when we were there, we shouldhave put brought um our beach
chairs.
SPEAKER_01 (39:13):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, because we could have justsat there and had snacks and we
had waters and yeah.
So next time yeah, next timewe're packing the beach chairs.
You know, we're boomers, we'rehow old we've been on how many
road trips together with ourfamily.
Yeah.
You'd think we would know bynow.
I know.
SPEAKER_00 (39:29):
What the heck?
We'll get we'll figure it out.
We'll get it.
We could have just bought somechairs.
SPEAKER_01 (39:34):
We could have done that too.
At the thrift store.
At the thrift store.
Oh my god.
Okay, so uh the next day weokay, we got a call the day I
think we were at I can'tremember if it was the day we
were in Cayucos or when we wereat Morrow Bay, but you got a
(39:56):
call from your son.
Yeah, my son called me.
I was about the guy's and theguy's dad.
And he started giving you theguy's phone number to reach out
to him and call.
We don't know.
Ums a guy, my son knows yourson, and he asked me to call me.
SPEAKER_00 (40:11):
Well, my son, the fisherman, who fishes with this
other guy that's uh uh sponsoredby Troublemaker.
Um, my son calls me and he'slike, Okay, so I talked to
White, and that's the kid's namethat's uh sponsored by
Troublemaker.
Right.
And he goes, he goes, so you hesaid to give his dad a call
because his dad is the vineyardmanager for La Aventure winery.
(40:35):
And um he goes, and and andhe'll he'll he'll talk to you
and all this type of stuff.
And I'm like, does he know I'mcalling?
I'm like, now it's awkward,right?
Um how do we apply a cold call?
I'm sorry, I don't do that.
But um can you just call for me?
But anyway, we did.
(40:55):
We reached out to the guy, andand you and I both knew it was
gonna be uh really a kind of abad time because it's the crush,
they're processing all thosegrapes and everything like that.
Um, but we did call um DaveDeBusque.
Super nice guy.
SPEAKER_01 (41:09):
Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00 (41:09):
And he's like, you know, I'm kind of busy right
now, but what about Sunday, ohno, Saturday morning?
Yeah, I can meet you at at thewinery and I can talk to you and
show you around.
You go down, was it 46 and thento the winery, and then he goes,
when you get to the to this tothis road, I cannot remember
what it was called now all of asudden.
Um he goes, you know, hang rightand then follow it till it ends.
(41:33):
It becomes a dirt road.
Becomes a dirt road battle gradeexactly go through all these and
then there'll be a gate.
Push the button.
The red button.
The red button.
Push the red button and the gatewill open.
And I was like, okay, so we didthat.
We're like, are we sneaking in?
I mean, there was nobody there,it was early in the morning.
And we get up there and he said,You'll meet us at the taste
(41:55):
room.
So we're and people were showingup for work.
For breakfast or oh, and forbreakfast wine.
And for breakfast wine.
Yeah.
Um, and we didn't realize tillwe left that the gate closes
after everybody.
SPEAKER_01 (42:05):
So everyone has to push the red button.
SPEAKER_00 (42:07):
Everybody, we we weren't that special.
Yeah.
Um, but anyway, Dave was sonice.
He spent a couple hours with usand he showed us everything
about that.
Uh it was a maze.
For instance, you know, theyalways say, Oh, this used to be
the sea floor.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And you're like, whatever.
Yeah, right.
(42:28):
Okay.
But then he takes us out intothe vineyard and he says, This
is the shale from the sea floor,and it is light as a feather.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (42:36):
The dirt.
SPEAKER_00 (42:37):
It is a choke.
SPEAKER_01 (42:39):
Yeah.
Or limestone shell.
SPEAKER_00 (42:41):
Something like that.
And so then, yeah, limestoneshale.
I don't know.
Anyway.
Ocean floor.
Ocean floor.
The ocean floor was so light.
And then um he also showed uswhere they that they had got
some fossils like a seashell,um, um uh vertebrae.
Right whale vertebrae.
SPEAKER_01 (42:58):
A bone, yeah, big huge bone on so that they dug up
with so when they okay, let'stalk about this place.
Um give a little bit of thehistory.
Uh the owner French from France.
Um the owner is a Frenchman, andwhen he bought the property
(43:18):
here, he thought it remindedhim, I guess, the the soil or
whatever, the location, theweather, all this stuff.
The terroir.
It all uh reminded him ofproperty in Champagne region.
So he bought this property andit was all just um dirt and what
(43:39):
what did he say?
Trees, I guess.
Yeah, there was nothing.
No, it was not it, it was notimproved.
Right, right, no grapes.
Uh he has built the mostbeautiful tasting oh my gosh.
It's amazing.
Um, and it's it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00 (43:52):
They have their own little nursery there where they
grow their own rootstock, therootstock, and then they'll
they'll splice on another,whatever you call that.
Graft it on.
Graft on.
They have people that come andgraft and they for the different
varietals that they do.
SPEAKER_01 (44:07):
They do so much though.
SPEAKER_00 (44:08):
Um, so that was interesting.
We've never actually seen thatbefore, so it was pretty cool.
Yeah, and then um he showed ustheir you know, their big tanks
where they're processing thewine and how they pump them over
and everything.
Super cool.
And then he where did he takeus, Monica?
SPEAKER_01 (44:23):
He took us to the cave.
So I'm thinking I've been up toa couple of caves.
We've been to some caves.
Yeah.
Caves up here in the foothillsand one in uh Sonoma.
SPEAKER_00 (44:33):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (44:34):
Um, but this isn't a cave.
SPEAKER_00 (44:37):
This is like an underground 30,000 square foot.
I thought that there was gonnabe a nuclear missile coming up,
lifting up out of there.
SPEAKER_01 (44:47):
I know, so we still go through this giant iron door
into the dirt weren't anysoldiers standing by it, which
made it super suspicious for me,NORAD.
Yeah, he opens this giant irondoor into the hillside, and we
walk in.
I am not kidding you, it wasunreal.
(45:08):
The it 30,000 square feet ofcave.
SPEAKER_00 (45:12):
And a lot of these caves that we've been in before,
it's like somebody, you know,not even just dug a hole, they
just like built a room onto theedge of a rock wall and call it
a cave.
But no, no, this was bored.
SPEAKER_01 (45:25):
Yes, from two sides, two ends.
They they came at one end, didso much of it, you know, um
reinforced the structure andeverything.
And again, this is old seafloor,right?
Ocean floor.
Um and then they've got theseuh, I think three rooms that you
(45:47):
can go into and have a winetasting experience.
We thought they should havetheir staff meetings in there.
SPEAKER_00 (45:54):
Well, uh it's a work, they're working case.
SPEAKER_01 (45:56):
Yes, yes.
So these little rooms have theexposed wall of the dirt, and
he's also all the sediment.
He reaches over and grabs apiece of the wall and just
breaks it off like because itwas that brittle.
SPEAKER_00 (46:09):
Yeah, and and so it you see all the sediment layers,
right?
And you can see the tectonicmovement and in those layers and
how they jut upward.
Yeah, and yeah, it wasbeautiful, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (46:21):
I mean, it was beautiful, beautiful, and the
the caves are lined with alltheir barrels.
I don't know how many hundredsof barrels they had in there,
but that's and the temperatureis completely controlled because
it's underground.
Yeah, so they have he showed usthey have these little what do
you call them for your air aircleaning?
(46:42):
Like a thermostat.
Like a thermostat in in every sooften along the caves.
And he said, Okay, it tells youwhat the temperature is here,
what the moisture level is.
CO2.
Yep, CO2, and then you said it'sit's the canary.
The canary from the caves.
SPEAKER_00 (46:59):
Canary in the mine shaft.
Yeah, yeah.
And he goes, That's exactly whatit is.
It tells us if there's anythingwrong.
They have a very intricatesystem of maintaining the air
quality, the safety.
They have a lot of vents,including one place, just one.
So they have vents on the on theground, right?
Drains and all that.
Yeah, but they have one areawhere if you stand on it, your
(47:21):
voice echoes.
Yeah, it was.
And it's no different than anyof the other areas that you know
visually, right?
But this only in this one place.
Only this one place.
And he said they found that byaccident.
It's their little winery mysteryspot.
That's right.
There's probably a bumpersticker.
Um but we he's at one point hesays, Well, do you know how deep
we are?
I'm like, I don't know, like 10,15 foot.
(47:42):
And he's 60 foot deep.
Yeah, it didn't even feel thatway.
The pictures we have areamazing.
SPEAKER_01 (47:47):
I know, I know.
Well we'll put those onInstagram.
SPEAKER_00 (47:50):
Yeah, we'll put them on Instagram.
SPEAKER_01 (47:52):
Absolutely beautiful.
La Aventure.
I'm probably not saying itright.
SPEAKER_00 (47:57):
I don't speak French, but it's not adventure,
it's adventure, so it's laAventure because the owner um he
sold two chateaus in France andthen traveled the world trying
to find the right place to be,and this was his adventure.
Yes, yes, this was hisadventure.
SPEAKER_01 (48:18):
Anyway, it's and Dave was oh, Dave was awesome.
And a wealth of information.
Um but they're barrels.
Let's talk a little bit aboutthe barrels.
So I I didn't know this, but uhlike the wine regions, and I
might not have this exactlyright, but like the wine regions
in France, the barrel industry,the barrel making industry, I
(48:40):
forgot what it's called, is uhvery regulated in France.
So apparently a uh barrel makingcompany, what there's a name for
they're coupon benders, they'recoopers, right?
SPEAKER_00 (48:52):
They're benders, they're coopers, but the benders
are the ones that put it all toYeah, make the slats and all
that.
SPEAKER_01 (48:58):
Okay.
So very regulated.
So a Cooper is allotted a forestor a section of a forest, and
that is it.
Yep.
They can only get their woodfrom there, they can't go
outside of it.
You know, they're licensed forthat or somehow regulated.
And La Venture uses, I think, adozen or so Coopers.
(49:20):
And so they have these barrelsshipped over from France and
they use them one time.
Yeah.
And then they uh resell them.
Um but very interesting.
And so their cave again, as Isaid, is lined with all their
barrels of wine and again thetemperature regulation or the
(49:42):
temperature control, and becausethey're able to line the caves,
and they're still, I don't know,10-15 feet in the middle to walk
through, um, they're able totest and sample and look at
their every barrel just standingthere.
They don't have to climb upladders.
Exactly.
Yeah, a lot of wineries storagespace is um because I don't
(50:04):
know, don't they have to turnthem or do something like that?
SPEAKER_00 (50:06):
No, maybe not in the barrel.
Maybe there's just the bottle.
But anyway, they don't have toclimb up on a big ladder for the
rack.
It's all at the waste level.
SPEAKER_01 (50:14):
And these barrels are beautiful.
I mean, I just have visions ofbarrels in my backyard.
SPEAKER_00 (50:18):
I can see that in your backyard.
Big barrels of wine.
Party at Monica's house.
SPEAKER_01 (50:23):
So the owner's name is Stefan Aseo.
Uh he does not play around withhis winery and his wine.
SPEAKER_00 (50:32):
Very serious.
SPEAKER_01 (50:33):
Yeah, yeah.
And it shows.
It shows.
Beautiful place, delicious wine,and um.
SPEAKER_00 (50:42):
The staff are super friendly.
Oh, yeah.
And they do a lot with internsbecause apparently in France it
there's something that they haveto have interns.
SPEAKER_01 (50:55):
Oh, I missed that.
SPEAKER_00 (50:56):
I was probably busy taking notes.
Probably.
She's a note taker.
Um, but then he has uh at hiswinery, he has interns also that
he brings over from France, andhe has some from like Cal Poly's
right there, right?
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo's rightthere and has a huge uh
agricultural studies program,including uh viticulture and and
(51:19):
all that.
So wine making wine stuff.
I was trying to think of theword.
SPEAKER_01 (51:24):
There's like, you know, wine things wine business
stuff, grapes, baking barrel,chemistry.
I don't know.
Looking forward to going back.
Definitely we'll go back there.
SPEAKER_00 (51:37):
I thought we had so much fun at Passerobles.
Yeah, and we that whole area.
SPEAKER_01 (51:41):
Right.
We spent so much time with DaveDeBusque at La Aventure, uh,
that we didn't even get to stopinto Austin Hope's winery, which
was next door.
Right next door.
Next door means down the roadover the cow grate onto the
paved road, I think.
(52:02):
And you know, a mile or so.
No.
Whatever next door is.
SPEAKER_00 (52:05):
That's pretty correct, I think.
SPEAKER_01 (52:07):
Next door in wine country terms.
SPEAKER_00 (52:10):
Yeah.
Uh we didn't get to a we had wehad quite the uh list of places
we were gonna go to, and wedidn't make it to hardly any of
the ones we were going to.
No.
Because we got distracted withall the other stuff that there
is to do down there.
SPEAKER_01 (52:24):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (52:25):
Oh, uh, we went to Tin City.
Oh, Tin City in uh kind of onthe outskirts of Passover Rowls.
SPEAKER_01 (52:32):
Yeah, cool place.
SPEAKER_00 (52:33):
It is cool.
It's like big warehouse type ofbuildings, so they call it Tin
City.
SPEAKER_01 (52:38):
Yeah, there's several buildings.
SPEAKER_00 (52:39):
Uh breweries, distilleries, wineries,
restaurants, everything coffee,desserts.
Yeah, it's a very cool place.
You could spend all day, twodays, three days there and never
touch everything.
SPEAKER_01 (52:55):
Right.
It's a pretty cool place.
We had a delicious lunch at alittle Italian or something like
that.
Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (53:03):
Yeah, they make all their own pasta.
I saw people walking out withbags of pasta.
Yep.
The food was delicious.
It was good.
We were busy.
SPEAKER_01 (53:12):
It was good.
And we went to the little umolive oil and balsamic stores.
SPEAKER_00 (53:17):
Olivos.
Um so that place was prettycool.
They actually they actually saidthey get their olives from
Oraville, which is up northhere.
SPEAKER_01 (53:31):
Yeah, that's funny.
Olivas de Oro, California groundolive oil.
SPEAKER_00 (53:36):
Yeah, and they have all different flavors.
We did a tasting there.
SPEAKER_01 (53:39):
Yeah, we did.
SPEAKER_00 (53:40):
And that was funny because she did a blending of
stuff like right.
SPEAKER_01 (53:45):
Yeah, so let's see.
You have a couple of the bottleshere.
So I think they paired like theuh Meyer Lemon olive oil with
fig white balsamics.
And then the mandarin olive.
That would be like for a saladdressing was delicious, and then
the mandarin orange olive oilwith the vanilla bean balsamic.
(54:06):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (54:07):
And that that tastes like um a cream sickle.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That did, that did.
That's all it took.
I was hooked.
SPEAKER_01 (54:16):
Um, and we went and had glass, I had a glass of wine
and a couple of other littletasting rooms there.
Yep.
Cute places.
We met a uh tasting room dog.
I've heard of it.
SPEAKER_00 (54:26):
A dog from Madagascar.
Yeah.
Looked like a look like aHighland Terrier or something.
Mixed with something else, Idon't know, with a beach on or
something.
I don't know.
I can't remember his name.
I don't know if it was likeWayne or Wally or something.
Wally.
It was Wally.
Wally.
Wally, he was a cutie patootie.
Yeah, just a puppy, too.
Yeah.
He was sweet, and he was he wasin full wine dog mode.
(54:46):
Like he just laid there whenpeople came in and greeted them,
and then he come sit by you.
Like, how's the wine?
Yeah, so it was a great trip.
I want to go, I'm ready to goback.
Well, we gotta go somewhere elsenext time, though.
I know there's so many places togo.
So much wine, so little time.
So if you get a chance to get topass the robles, by all means,
and there's so much more to see.
(55:07):
I mean, you you could take avariety of ways there, but we
took the scenic route.
We went straight down I-5.
It's a garden spot.
SPEAKER_01 (55:15):
The not scenic route.
Um on the way out, okay.
Again, uh we hit it just at theright time, wrong place, wrong
time, actually.
Because there was constructiongoing on on a couple of four
times.
They had me so confused.
I don't know.
We literally looped around likethree to three times.
SPEAKER_00 (55:36):
I was like, oh, okay, it's this way.
This is the ramp we went.
No, nope, nope, flip around, goback again.
Okay, we're gonna catch it thistime.
No, how did we miss it again?
I don't know.
Back at the like three times,but worst case scenario, which
actually would have beenworst-case scenario, we ended up
in Bakersfield.
And then we could just take 99aura.
Right, right, right.
But right after we got back, Isaw this guy on TikTok and he
(55:58):
said, he goes, he's in his car,and he goes, if you're ever
driving through the centralvalley of California on I-5, he
goes, the the left lane, minimum95 miles an hour.
Oh shit.
Do not do not come into thislane unless you're going 95.
Oh my god.
And I'm like, right on.
That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_01 (56:20):
But yeah, good trip.
We're gonna hit the road againhere soon, I think.
Yeah, soon.
We'll see.
We'll see.
I'm going to uh Minneapolis,Minnesota next week.
SPEAKER_00 (56:29):
And you know what they have there?
SPEAKER_01 (56:31):
Wineries.
I know.
So I'm very curious to look atthe wine lists on the menu.
Are they growing wine inMinnesota?
Yeah, they have wineries there.
Are they growing wine?
SPEAKER_00 (56:42):
They're growing grapes for wine grow for wine.
They come in in 750 bottles, 750milliliter bottles.
Or you could get the great bigone.
It's your choice.
Sometimes they come in littlecans, but those are just bigies.
Those are just like buds.
SPEAKER_01 (56:56):
Um, they're grown wine.
I don't know why I was actuallycurious to see how much
California wine is going to beon the menu there.
I'm just curious whichCalifornia wines they'll have.
SPEAKER_00 (57:05):
Guaranteed they'll have Bogle.
unknown (57:07):
Guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (57:08):
Guaranteed.
Yeah.
So we'll see.
Yeah, that'll be fun.
I'm I can't wait for you to comeback after doing all your
research.
SPEAKER_01 (57:13):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (57:14):
So we'll we'll cover that, I'm sure.
All right.
Well, thanks for joining.
See you next time.
Bye.
Welcome to Wine Camp.
Welcome back.
We're back.
I'm Monica.
SPEAKER_00 (00:12):
And I'm Neil.
SPEAKER_01 (00:13):
And we took a road trip.
SPEAKER_00 (00:15):
We did.
Full of shenanigans.
Yes, we did.
Uh Pasarobles.
Yes.
End of September we went to PasoRobles, which is without stops,
like five hours from here.
So is it that long of a drive?
Yeah.
It went by so fast.
It was because we were talkingthe whole time.
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (00:33):
Even we had lots of stops.
Even when we got in that loop onthe way back, we'll get to that
later.
SPEAKER_00 (00:37):
Monica has a uh has a map in her mind of where all
the Starbucks are.
SPEAKER_01 (00:43):
Yeah, so we hit the road.
Um oh Paso Robles.
So don't come at us, PasoRobles, Paso Robles, Paso
Robles, I don't know.
The locals say Paso Robles.
SPEAKER_00 (00:57):
And uh who am I to argue with a local?
Right.
So it's on the central coast ofCalifornia, which is like the
perfect weather conditions.
It's more inland, so it's alittle it gets hot, but it is
you know 30 minutes from beingat the ocean.
SPEAKER_01 (01:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:14):
And we spent a lot of time there.
SPEAKER_01 (01:15):
We did.
We spent a lot of time in town.
In town.
And at the ocean.
SPEAKER_00 (01:19):
And at the ocean.
SPEAKER_01 (01:20):
We did a lot.
So okay, so we headed down, andit was, it just happened to be
the day after the uh uh therapture.
The rapture.
SPEAKER_00 (01:33):
Neither of us were raptured, right?
I don't think that comes as ashock to anybody.
It certainly wasn't a shock tome.
SPEAKER_01 (01:40):
We talked a little bit, I told you.
Um I did check social media tomake sure my pastor was still
around.
Yeah.
And I checked on you.
So we know that was a falseprophet.
Um but the rapture, you we'renot supposed to know when it's
gonna happen anyway.
Exactly.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_00 (02:01):
And we were we, you know, what what really happened
is we were recording ourselvesdriving down there because we
thought, let's just try that aspart of the road trip.
But um, you know, technicaldifficulties, which is super
unfortunate because we werefreaking hilarious on the way
down talking about the raptureand all sorts of other stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (02:19):
But we we are boomers since we think that's to
be expected.
That's right.
Even we stopped to eat lunch onthe way down, and we stopped at
the Scottish restaurant.
Yes, McDonald's.
McDonald's.
And uh we tried to use themobile app.
SPEAKER_00 (02:34):
It was very difficult.
SPEAKER_01 (02:36):
We had a little kerfuffle.
SPEAKER_00 (02:37):
We tr we tried to get a hold of tech support, but
they were at work, so they theycouldn't help us.
SPEAKER_01 (02:44):
Oh my god.
Yeah, the time it took us tomake our orders on the mobile
app.
SPEAKER_00 (02:48):
I mean, gosh.
I mean and not just one order,two, because I had uh get a Big
Mac free on the app.
I'm like woot woot woot.
So I placed my order and ordereda uh a soda also, but all I got
was a soda because apparently Idid it wrong.
So then I had to place anotherorder to get my Big Mac, but you
(03:09):
had to order uh I have a minimumlike a dollar fifty order with
it or something.
So I had to order fries.
I don't even eat the fries,which they have great fries,
don't get me wrong.
But anyway, so I ended upspending more money than I
needed to just to get the freeBig Mac.
It was stupid.
SPEAKER_01 (03:27):
Because we really had our own drinks already,
yeah.
Water, coffee, whatever in thecar.
But no, we had to get thejacket.
SPEAKER_00 (03:34):
Well, it was a road trip, so and I love a road trip.
Oh, snaps for snacks.
Yeah, because no calories countwhen you're on a road trip.
So we were loaded for bear.
We had stuff in there that Ihaven't had in years.
I'm like, oh, now we're gonnahave to have some candy and
we're gonna crackers of it, meatand cheese and slami, and we had
(03:55):
um snacky things and all theprotein bars just to offset all
that other stuff.
Right, you know, and fruit.
SPEAKER_01 (04:03):
Yep, yep, and we probably had two dozen liquid
IVs.
Yes, because we both broughtenough for both of us, not
knowing.
SPEAKER_00 (04:10):
Yeah, that was used zero of everything.
Because we were walking aroundgoing, oh let's let's have lunch
there.
Yeah, let's stop here, let'sstop there.
Anyway, but we eventually madeit to Paso Rules, also known as
Paso.
SPEAKER_01 (04:26):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (04:27):
And um we had a nice little hotel room.
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (04:31):
So complimentary wine every night.
SPEAKER_00 (04:34):
And we're talking, oh, and then we have a new
stage, you know.
We've discussed before the Napapore, the sonoma pour the amador
pour and the backyard pour.
I'm gonna tell you that thathotel poured somewhere between
uh Amador and Backyard.
SPEAKER_01 (04:50):
Yeah, it was huge.
Those were big pours.
Um, yeah, so uh the wine wasdecent at the hotel for being
hotel complimentary wine.
And I understand the owner hasan interest in wine, either he
makes it or he, I don't know,something the owner.
But this wasn't his wine.
That's what they told me at thedesk.
Oh, it was his wine.
(05:11):
That's why they had the wine ontap.
Oh, which says a lot, right?
That means it's a big vat of itunderneath the cabinet.
I did not see a box under thecabinet when she opened it.
SPEAKER_00 (05:23):
She was having trouble getting it going.
Um, yeah.
I think she was having troubleturning it off.
SPEAKER_01 (05:28):
Yeah, really poor, clearly.
I mean, they were to the rim.
It was funny.
That's how my husband pours aglass of wine.
On the rare occasion.
SPEAKER_00 (05:37):
It's a mega glass of wine, right?
Like a Johnny Depp testimonytype of thing.
It's a mega glass of wine.
SPEAKER_01 (05:47):
Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00 (05:48):
So we yeah, we finally made it to to Pascal
Robles and got checked in at thehotel, and then we decided, hey,
let's go to the downtown square.
It's on the on the park, whichlike all these little old towns
have, up and down the ghost.
And so we were uh going there,we were gonna go get some dinner
and just kind of look around.
(06:08):
We had we had a couple placesthat we wanted to go.
One was we wanted to try thiswine called Troublemaker, right?
Because my son, the professionalbass fisherman, he travels with
a guy who um is sponsored byTroublemaker.
SPEAKER_01 (06:27):
Right.
So we get all these little thislittle bits of information.
You gotta go try Troublemaker.
SPEAKER_00 (06:32):
Yeah, you gotta go there.
They're really good.
It's um it's made by um this uhAustin Hope fellow.
And so anyway, we we're like,yeah, that okay, but that's one
of the places we want to go.
So we start off walking aroundthe square.
Oh, we've got like 50 feet.
I mean, I start off, weliterally just started off, we
parked and stepped on thesidewalk.
Yeah.
And I'm like, well, lookyMonica.
(06:54):
A bar.
It's not just a bar, it's atasting room.
Yeah, a window on the world, awindow on the park.
And that's really all it was.
It's like they threw up themetal um um like a garage door.
Like a garage door, and voila, atasting room.
SPEAKER_01 (07:11):
Yeah, it was like a like a tasting bar right there
on the sidewalk.
It reminded me a little bit ofwhen I was in New Orleans many,
many years ago, there were bars,and I'm using air quotes.
Um, basically it was like acloset.
The guy would open the door andhe had a keg with a counter,
like a plywood counter.
(07:31):
Uh, and he had a sign that saidcheap ass beer is two dollars.
SPEAKER_00 (07:36):
And I don't know why it seems much more charming in
Italy when they have a littlelittle little like teeny tiny
door, little like like like acupboard door.
Yeah, and you knock on it.
And you can get a glass of wineor or an affogato or something
like that.
But we so anyway, we went and wesaid, Hey, let's taste some
(07:57):
wine.
There were a lot of other peopledoing that.
And it turned out it was theAustin Hope tasting room.
So we got our troublemaker and Idon't know what else I bought.
What else did I buy?
I bought a couple of I boughtsome other wine too.
Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_01 (08:12):
Because I was starting out strong.
Right.
So we sat there and chatted withum Jody.
Jody.
Jody and Allie.
And Allie, right, right.
Yeah, very sweet ladies.
Yeah, and that place is calledHope on Park.
Yes.
We did pick up one of theirpamphlets.
Um, anyway, they were absolutelystill lovely.
SPEAKER_00 (08:34):
So and the people that we were chatting with while
we were there.
Oh, there is just something veryuh communal about uh, you know,
tasting wine.
You just can chat with anybody.
Yes.
And um you know what else theydo?
I don't know if you picked up onthis, Monica.
It's like if you wanted to justget a little glass of wine,
they'd put it in a to-go cup,and you can take it, no lid,
over to the park and drink it atthe park.
SPEAKER_01 (08:56):
They did have a lid.
Oh, did they have a lid?
They did have a lid so you don'tspill in the park?
Right, right, right.
Little plastic glass of winewith a lid, and you could get it
to go.
And they also made some winecocktails there.
So it was we didn't have those,but very curious.
But yeah, speaking of the peoplethat we chatted with, but
(09:16):
remember Pam?
I yes, a lovely lady, supersweet.
She was telling us, I think shemoved down here from the Bay
Area, I think, and then she wastelling us about a woman she
knows.
And I'm not gonna name namesbecause I accidentally said
Pam's name already.
SPEAKER_00 (09:35):
You didn't give her a last name.
No, I did not.
Pam Wink.
SPEAKER_01 (09:39):
Yeah.
She was telling this funnystory.
I don't even know how we got onthe subject, but this little old
lady, relative of hers, who hadbeen out walking her dog or
something, or at the grocerystore.
She was at the grocery store,and this young man, I think the
woman is in her 80s.
Yes.
And this young man at thegrocery store, you know, made
(10:01):
eye contact with her, smiled andsaid hello with a big smile.
And she smiled and said helloright back, and then she told
Pam later, basically, I think Istill got it because I think I
wanted to with him.
SPEAKER_00 (10:18):
Yeah, I think she was like pushing 90 or
something.
Good for her.
You go, girl.
Good for you.
Oh my god, how did we get Idon't know.
That's the thing.
When you're in these places,first off, the alcohol's
flowing.
Right.
And so so are the words.
It's just it just goes hand inhand.
SPEAKER_01 (10:36):
Yeah, let's see.
Once the wine starts flowing,yeah, I think lose lips.
But she was cute.
SPEAKER_00 (10:41):
Another thing about Austin Hope, they have the best
wine-carrying bags.
SPEAKER_01 (10:46):
Oh, we definitely have to put a picture of that
bag on the window.
SPEAKER_00 (10:50):
Oh my gosh, it's the best bag.
It's like a really heavy-dutyfelt.
Yeah.
And then like a leather airquotes, I guess.
A strap on it.
Yeah.
It's like the best bag ever.
SPEAKER_01 (11:02):
And it's bright orange.
SPEAKER_00 (11:04):
Bright orange.
SPEAKER_01 (11:04):
Yeah, it's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00 (11:05):
I use it for my trick-or-treating bag.
Or you can look around and peepat the neighborhood and people
can fill it up with wine.
SPEAKER_01 (11:11):
Four or six.
I don't remember how many ithelped.
Oh, yeah, that's perfect.
Another thing about Austin Hopeis Jody took us into the back
room.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
That location where they curatejust amazing wine experiences.
SPEAKER_00 (11:27):
Oh my gosh.
Because it looks like it's justthat front, right?
The countertop and you know, alittle place for you to stand
and taste the wine.
But behind the door, it's likethe Wizard of Oz is back there,
right?
And beautiful.
They, like you said, they haveso many tastes and experiences.
They have different rooms,different um seating areas.
(11:50):
And you it's amazing all thedifferent ways that you you have
to experience their wine.
Right.
In a private setting.
SPEAKER_01 (11:59):
Right.
And I'm sure you have to makereservations for those
experiences.
SPEAKER_00 (12:02):
We didn't even get to the winery itself.
Yeah.
We just went to that place.
SPEAKER_01 (12:06):
Yeah.
So then we went to dinner.
Yes.
And we had dinner at a littlerestaurant called Taste.
So good.
Yeah.
Okay.
So we weren't that hungrybecause we had had Scottish food
for lunch.
That's right.
SPEAKER_00 (12:20):
Who knew Scottish food could be so filling?
SPEAKER_01 (12:24):
The big Mackin Fright.
And then uh so we weren't thathungry.
So we were looking at the menu.
Everything looked so good.
SPEAKER_00 (12:31):
And and this place is like a recommended place too.
It's right on the on the square.
Um, and we'd heard about itbefore, so we were pretty happy
when we could get a table.
Oh, key note though, we werethere, we started midweek.
Oh, yeah.
So we didn't have to worry aboutweekend crowds or anything.
SPEAKER_01 (12:50):
Right.
So yeah, so that's probably whywe got right in there for
dinner.
And I remember looking at themenu, and they had not one, not
two, three or four differentBrussels sprouts.
Four types of Brussels sprouts.
And you and I do love us someBrussels sprouts.
We do indeed.
So uh, you know, we decided toget a couple appetizers.
We thought, man, should we get athird one?
SPEAKER_00 (13:10):
Yeah, we really went back and forth on it and decided
let's just get two to start.
SPEAKER_01 (13:15):
And we got water because at that point we'd been
tasting it Austin Hope.
It's important to stay hydrated.
unknown (13:20):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (13:22):
Uh who I have never seen a full meal of Brussels
sprouts.
Fat flatter was huge and piledhigh.
SPEAKER_00 (13:31):
Right.
And it was delicious.
And I'm trying to think, so theywere uh um the Brussels sprouts
were roasted.
Yeah.
And they had on uh wesubstituted the cheese that they
had for a goat cheese.
SPEAKER_01 (13:45):
Right, right.
It was gonna be feta.
SPEAKER_00 (13:47):
Yeah, it was gonna be feta, which is fine.
But we used uh waitressrecommended uh substituting it
for goat cheese for a more mildflavor, and I believe there's
probably some balsamic involved.
Yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_01 (13:58):
And I don't remember what else was on that.
SPEAKER_00 (14:00):
And there was all sorts of it was delicious.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (14:03):
So we had um a full meal of Brussels sprows, and
then we ordered the brie.
SPEAKER_00 (14:09):
Yes again.
SPEAKER_01 (14:10):
My god charcuterie board.
SPEAKER_00 (14:12):
It's important to get your protein in the form of
cheese, I guess.
It was a full charcuterie board.
It was huge.
Yeah.
So uh it was, I mean, honestly,when I think of like let's get
an appetizer, you know, they'reusually like small plate, right?
Maybe they used to be appetizersand then they came along with
appetizers and small plates.
And now they now there's justoptions.
(14:33):
So but these appetizers werelike for a crowd.
Yeah.
It was a platter, like a I wishwe'd had some warning.
SPEAKER_01 (14:41):
Uh we didn't eat it.
SPEAKER_00 (14:42):
Because we left a lot of it behind.
SPEAKER_01 (14:43):
We did, because we didn't have anywhere to save it.
Um, but there was a family nextto us, and I looked over at what
they were eating, and I guessthey just had regular plates of
food because it looked verynormal.
But anyway, it was delicious.
I highly recommend it.
Taste taste.
Yeah, so we went there, and thenwhat else did we do?
SPEAKER_00 (15:02):
We went to a speakeasy.
We sure did.
How fun was that?
SPEAKER_01 (15:09):
Yes, that was my first time ever doing that.
SPEAKER_00 (15:11):
And we've been talking about doing that three
times, yes.
SPEAKER_01 (15:14):
Do a circle, no, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:16):
It's like do the secret handshake, all this.
Yeah.
We went to the speakeasy, and umwhat was crazy about it is like
I was like, let's, you know, Ithought we were just going
through the hoops, right?
Knock, yeah, they open the door,you know, all this cryptic
stuff, and but no, they youknock, they open the door, and
they go, We'll be back.
(15:38):
I was like, oh, okay.
Because I'm like, they must behaving to clean a table.
Yeah, no, but we walked in, itwasn't a big place at all.
But it was moody.
SPEAKER_01 (15:48):
Yeah, it was very cool.
SPEAKER_00 (15:50):
Uh, and we had to give up our phones.
Yes, that was hard, not not forany reason other than uh do I
know you?
SPEAKER_01 (15:59):
I wanted to take pictures.
I know I wanted pictures.
SPEAKER_00 (16:02):
We think you're gonna give some stranger my
phone, but we don't give thestranger our phone.
SPEAKER_01 (16:05):
No, no.
SPEAKER_00 (16:06):
So they take it and they put it in this uh rubbery
envelope of a thing, and thenlatch it close, and it's like
when you go to, I don't know,Kohl's and they have the
magnetic lock on the clothes, soit goes beep, beep, beep, beep.
Um, it's like that.
And so they have to have theapparatus to open it.
(16:27):
So then they give it back toyou, you know, and and you're
just sitting there with thisphone you can't access.
And yeah, we kept wanting toaccess our phones because uh we
want to look stuff up, right?
We want to take a picture, butMonica, tell tell the listeners
why they don't want you to haveyour phone.
Well, hell, I don't know why.
Oh shoot.
That was like bumble bleed.
(16:49):
Um because they want you to bein the moment.
Oh my god.
What is in your water bottle?
Is it water?
Is it what?
Austin Hope.
No, they want you to be in themoment and experience because
even the bartenders are prettymuch in character and very
engaging because it was sointimate.
SPEAKER_01 (17:11):
Such an well, and we got seated at the bar, which was
very cool.
SPEAKER_00 (17:13):
Which is I really like I like to sit at a bar.
Yeah.
I mean, it's fun when you have ahuge group to be at your table
and but if it's just a couple ofpeople, sit at the bar.
You engage with the bartenders,you engage with the other people
at the bar.
It's again more community-based.
SPEAKER_01 (17:28):
Yeah, yeah.
So the bartender was, you know,very chatty.
And yeah, there we sat with ourphones locked in these bag pouch
things.
Um, kept saying, Oh, we shouldlook, oh, can't do that.
Can't look that up, can't dothis.
Get a picture, can't do that.
Oh my god, we should take apicture of us.
SPEAKER_00 (17:45):
Oh, we can't take a picture of it.
SPEAKER_01 (17:46):
I feel like it took me a minute to let go of that.
SPEAKER_00 (17:49):
But once you do, it's really nice to to
disconnect because you do getengaged easier with other
people.
There aren't distractions andyou do get to be in the moment.
I think there's also thisheightened sense, uh, well,
heightened senses because theymade some unique drinks at this
bar.
I had a grasshopper just becauseI felt like well, that's kind of
(18:10):
trendy for the you know,speakeasy type of thing.
But then they had a slew of oldfashions which are super popular
again.
SPEAKER_01 (18:18):
Yeah, and I had the like maple pecan, I had the
butter pecan old fashioned.
Yeah.
And I'm not really a whatever'sin that distilled bourbon.
SPEAKER_00 (18:30):
It's not not distilled alcohol, it's not your
thing.
SPEAKER_01 (18:32):
Yeah, not really.
But that was good.
It was so good that I hadanother one the next night at
the restaurant that's in frontof that that it's attached to.
SPEAKER_00 (18:39):
And they they um so they, you know, like crispied
up, burnt up some cinnamon.
Yeah.
And then they um, I don't know,they smoked some other stuff in
underneath the cake on like it'slike a cake platter.
So on the wood on top.
A cloche.
I don't care.
It's the lid of a cake plate.
I don't care what you call it.
I'm like, I'm like, at my house,that's a cake plate with a lid,
(19:02):
glass dome on it.
A wooden base and the glassglass.
SPEAKER_01 (19:06):
That's a cake platter.
No, it's a it's a cloche.
It's a wooden base with acloche, yeah.
That we set things on fire witha couple of things.
Or you could put a cake in it.
SPEAKER_00 (19:17):
Um, but that was a really it was it's a whole
presentation when they do it.
I mean, they really go throughthe the moves on.
SPEAKER_01 (19:24):
And it was good.
Um you know when when you talkedabout how they came to the door,
we knocked on the door, thefront door, the woman came to
the door, and she how many, andshe goes, I'll be right back.
It was a little Wizard ofOz-ish.
And then the smoke and magic andstuff the bartender was doing
behind the bar.
That was kind of cool too.
(19:45):
Um, yeah, a little bit it wasmoody, like you said, very
moody.
It was cool.
SPEAKER_00 (19:49):
So yeah, and they had like um little snugs where
people were like sitting in, youknow, like a booth.
Yeah, snug.
SPEAKER_01 (19:58):
Oh, that's a new word, but that's a very cool
word.
SPEAKER_00 (20:01):
A snug is like um I learned this when I went to
Ireland.
Oh back in the day, like youknow, a hundred something years
ago, right?
Um, oh, and the women would goto the bar, they can be really
seen if they put them in alittle tiny like alcove room.
Snug.
And so people will go into snugsand have like private
(20:22):
conversations and and all that.
So yeah.
I think I saw something likethat.
Pinky blinders, probably.
Pinky blinders.
A man with the big red hat orwhatever.
Yeah, that was cool.
SPEAKER_01 (20:37):
Okay, snug.
Yeah.
Plether of useless information.
Okay, so the speake was called1122 speakeasy.
And it's behind PappyMcGregor's.
And Pappy McGregor's is right,well, look it up on Google it.
SPEAKER_00 (20:54):
Listen, if you went to the square, you'd see the
sign that said, Oh, PappyMcGregor's.
But you walk, you you I guessyou can walk through Pappy
McGregor's.
SPEAKER_01 (21:01):
To go to the back side of the building.
SPEAKER_00 (21:02):
Backside, but if you want to get into the speakeas,
you have to go outside onto thatother st down the alley.
Yeah.
Down an alley.
Yeah, we did have to go down.
Um and then to the other street.
SPEAKER_01 (21:13):
In the hood of Paso Robles.
So the next day.
Oh, we went to Cambria to gowalk around.
SPEAKER_00 (21:23):
Yes, we did.
SPEAKER_01 (21:24):
Yeah, that little town too.
It's such a cute little town.
Yeah.
On the between Paso and theocean, somewhere.
SPEAKER_00 (21:30):
That's actually, yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01 (21:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (21:32):
It's it's such a cute little town.
We did do that.
We wandered through there alittle bit.
Um shops.
We also went to Cayucos.
Oh, but the day we went toCambria, after we did that, we
went and toured Hearst Castle.
Oh, was that's the day we wentto because then we drove to San
uh San Simeon, where HearstCastle is.
You know, for me it was aspecial treat because um I've
(21:54):
been to these places before, butyou haven't.
I felt like quite the tourguide.
Yes, you was.
You were cool.
Uh Hearst Castle, man.
It's it's the uh it's the summercottages of Rhode Island on the
west coast.
You know, it's those it's thosebig big mansion type things.
SPEAKER_01 (22:11):
So opul.
He was so over the top andopulent and wasteful.
SPEAKER_00 (22:19):
Interesting thing that they said on that tour was
that uh after his dad died, hismom was withholding the money
from him because she was afraidthat he would spend it foolishly
and waste it all.
And he did.
I mean, though it's the stuff hehauled in from Europe to build
(22:42):
this place and the amount oftimes that they redid the
construction to to modify.
I mean, the change orders onthat must have been crazy.
But the view's spectacular.
It is.
Um, I was surprised that so wewent to uh the pool that's below
the tennis court.
(23:02):
Yes, and it's a gorgeous indoorindoor pool, um, lots of
beautiful tile and gold.
Lots of gold.
SPEAKER_01 (23:11):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (23:11):
Um, but uh not only was that for the use of the gas,
but also the staff could usethat pool.
I was very surprised by that.
But hey, it's probably reallyhard to get people to come all
the way out to San Simeon andand work like that back then.
There was very little thetransportation wasn't easy.
(23:33):
And and uh what did the busstars?
SPEAKER_01 (23:36):
So you you drive up to the visitor center, it's now
run by the state parks, but yes,it's five miles of a windy road
up the hill on a bus that getsright up on the edge.
Yes, and there are someprecarious and what I also loved
about going to visit that is Iremembered that there's a tie
(24:00):
between the William RandolphHearst and New Clairvaux Winery.
That's right.
Which uh I don't know whatepisode it is, but we had a
couple of episodes on the NewClairvaux Winery where um the
Trappist Cistercian monks have amonastery, and there's a story.
If you want to hear the wholestory, go listen to um those
(24:22):
episodes.
But uh Hearst is the one whobought the stones, had a
monaster a Trapez Cistercianmonastery in Spain,
disassembled, schlepped orshipped all those stones over to
San Francisco.
And then schlepped.
Yeah, shipped and thenschlepped.
And uh the story is eventuallygot the stones got left in uh
(24:44):
Golden Gate Park, and later thestones made their way to um Vina
Vina, the little teeny town.
Don't blink, yep, you'll passthat.
That was it.
That was Vina to the littleteeny tiny mount town of Vina
and rebuilt as their chapterhouse in uh church.
Absolutely beautiful, but thatwas a connection, so that was a
(25:07):
really cool thing.
SPEAKER_00 (25:08):
Yeah.
And and um also uh he had like afull-on zoo there, like
roaming-free zebras, and you canstill see zebras today, even
though most of the all thoseanimals are gone, the zebras
apparently escaped.
And are they descendants of theoriginal zebras?
No, they don't grow zebras herenaturally, of course they're
descendants.
SPEAKER_01 (25:29):
But yeah, no, I mean, did he bring over new
zebras?
No, or somebody bring over newzebras, or these are the zebras.
SPEAKER_00 (25:35):
These are those this is those are those zebras.
That's what I meant.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
It's the descendants of firstcastle.
Yeah.
There's zebras and there's someother stuff, some sort of like
antelope or something that'sthere as well.
But I didn't see them, but wedid see the zebras on our way
down the windy road back to theparking.
SPEAKER_01 (25:55):
And then I think the next day we started out with a
breakfast wine at LXV.
SPEAKER_00 (26:02):
Cool place.
Yeah.
Um, the the owners uh are um uhNita and hold on, I have their
names.
Yeah, Nita and I can't rememberhis name.
SPEAKER_01 (26:13):
Nita and K Kunal Mittal.
Um and they are well, we didn'tget to meet Kunal, but Nita was
there.
SPEAKER_00 (26:21):
She was very involved in the tasting
experience.
Because the tasting experienceinstead of just going to the
taste, we wanted to do a specialexperience, and it was a wine
pairing with spices.
SPEAKER_01 (26:33):
Yes, yeah, that was really awesome.
SPEAKER_00 (26:35):
And so um they're Indian.
Yeah, and uh I think she saidthey went to uh Berkeley, yeah,
I think it was and theygraduated with like big degrees,
right?
But they loved wine so much andtraveling for wine that they
decided to get into the wineindustry and start making wine.
Apparently, their parents werenot so happy about that after
getting those big degrees, buthere they are killing it.
(26:58):
But it was really neat becausethe spices they had us go in
order, they were put on um agoat sheep's milk a sheep's milk
cheese, so it was a littleharder.
Um just little bites, and um, wetasted in a certain order, and
uh the spices they had a verylike Indian flavor to them, a
(27:19):
variety of them.
Like there was the butterchicken.
I love butter chicken at theIndian restaurants, but they had
the seasonings for that.
That was the last one we tasted,right?
And a variety of them, anyway,so good, and you could buy the
spices, so we did, we did, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (27:34):
So LXV, um, beautiful little tasting room,
very intimate, and it was agreat experience, and their
wines are delicious.
I don't know who's making theirwines, but um, I don't know who
their winemaker is, I shouldsay.
Uh, but delicious.
I bought several bottles of TheSpell, and I think you bought
(27:54):
The Secret and The Spell or Sohighly recommend LXV.
In fact, I think it was a coupledays before we were going, I
came across um a video on TikTokof a young woman saying, I'm
going to Paso this weekend.
That's right.
Does anyone haverecommendations?
So I saved it.
I said, We're gonna, we're goingstraight to the notes and taking
(28:16):
recommendations.
And this is one of therecommendations.
SPEAKER_00 (28:18):
And taste was also, yes, taste.
SPEAKER_01 (28:20):
Austin Home.
Yeah, we pretty much wrote onher tails.
Yeah, we didn't even see her.
We were kind of on the lookoutfor her, but we didn't see her,
whoever you are.
Um, but yeah, that was one ofthe recommendations, and it did
not disappoint, I'm telling you.
SPEAKER_00 (28:35):
And was that the night we went to Censario?
SPEAKER_01 (28:38):
Yes, yes, we went to the light show, but we did
something else after thisbecause this was breakfast wine.
SPEAKER_00 (28:44):
Yeah, that was breakfast wine.
We did something else.
SPEAKER_01 (28:47):
I thought it was funny.
A lot of wineries there open at10.
We made this reservation for 11or something like that.
SPEAKER_00 (28:52):
So what else did we do?
Oh no, we went to I don't know,we we did a lot of stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (28:58):
We went back to the coast, I think.
SPEAKER_00 (29:00):
I think we went to Caillou Coast that day.
SPEAKER_01 (29:01):
Yeah, I think you're right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (29:03):
Another cute little town.
Yeah, very cute, little artsytype of town.
Just walked around a little bit,walked around, poked our head at
some shops, had a little Nosh.
SPEAKER_01 (29:14):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (29:14):
Yeah, that was fun.
Recommend that.
And then and then we came back.
I we got more hotel wine.
We got more hotel wine.
And then and then we went toCensario.
SPEAKER_01 (29:24):
Yeah.
Cool place.
That's uh number onerecommendation.
It's a light show.
And again, you've been therebefore, but how long ago?
SPEAKER_00 (29:34):
Um, I was there in 2020.
And um So it's these L thisartist um got this hillside, so
the hillsides are tucked way in,so you don't get any residual
lights like from roads oranything like that.
And Paso Robles has rollinghills.
(29:55):
Uh huh.
And so that's really pretty.
They used to be covered withcows before they were covered
with grapes.
But now there's still nowthere's less grapes, but
whatever.
But anyway, so these rollinghills and they're covered with
these hundreds of thousands ofLED lights that just change
colors.
So you're up there and you go inand they have when I first went,
(30:16):
that's all they had was justthose rolling hills and I think
like a little portable bar.
Yeah.
Um but that was about it.
SPEAKER_01 (30:22):
But now so much more.
And now they have well, first ofall, there's a whole building
and a stage, like a bandstand.
There was a band there, lots oftables to sit at, a place to get
drinks, another place for food.
And then they had a VIP section,which we weren't really that
familiar with.
They apparently didn't know whowe are.
(30:42):
Anyway, so then you start.
Um we got there before thesunset.
SPEAKER_00 (30:46):
Which was important because I think that the view
with the sun setting throughthose hills, it's all golden,
right?
And then the the sunset comes,and then as the sun sets, the
lights come on.
Right.
And they have a lot of benchesaround the pathways now to sit
on.
SPEAKER_01 (30:59):
Right, right.
So you can walk around, it'saccessible and walk around, um,
and then these lights on thehillside, and then you walk
through, just follow the path.
Then you come to an area wherethere's several other areas now.
Um, there was one where they hadthey look like well, they were
fishing rods, I think.
SPEAKER_00 (31:17):
Yeah, it was called the fishing hole, is that area
of their exhibit.
And I think what they do is umbecause they're what I what I
heard that they do is that theyum get I'll just call them bids
or from uh artists on ideas ofwhat to do.
And then they select and theyimplement it.
Yeah.
So this one, I don't know ifthere was water in there or not.
(31:39):
I don't think so.
I don't know.
It was dark, I couldn't see.
SPEAKER_01 (31:42):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:42):
But it's like, I don't know, probably a hundred
or so fishing rods with even thelittle eyes on it for the lines
to go through, which is wherethe LED light went through.
SPEAKER_01 (31:52):
And it's just and they were like set up like a fan
of fishing rods.
Did I call them fishing poles atfirst?
I think you can call them eitherone.
Oh no, not my house.
SPEAKER_00 (32:04):
And hole.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:05):
My husband always says it's a rod.
SPEAKER_00 (32:07):
Is that what Rod says?
SPEAKER_01 (32:08):
My husband Rod says he's the rod.
Um so there was the gone fishingor whatever section.
Absolutely beautiful.
And then there was another onewhere they had these um d
displays of wine bottles.
Right.
Almost they were like towers.
Yeah, like round cylinder typetowers.
(32:30):
But they're all wine bottles,right?
All wine bottles and lit fromthe inside and music.
SPEAKER_00 (32:34):
Music playing.
It was really cool, right?
SPEAKER_01 (32:37):
Beautiful.
SPEAKER_00 (32:37):
It's really cool, and you can walk through all
those towers and just get thefull experience of the music and
and all.
And like like you said, it's allcompletely accessible,
wheelchair accessible andeverything.
Yeah.
And so then they had another onethat was the fireflies.
So on a hillside.
Oh, yeah.
There's all these little tinywhite, these tiny tiny lights,
(33:00):
but then the breeze catches thathillside and they move back and
forth.
Like fireflies.
Like fireflies.
SPEAKER_01 (33:06):
That was very beautiful, too.
And I think our favorite one wasit's like almost like an
umbrella of LED lights with acylinder in the middle, and then
they just change color, but themusic there was so moving.
SPEAKER_00 (33:20):
It was like some of it was like classical, like it
was orchestral, yeah, right.
Yeah, it was as if orchestra anorchestra was playing, and the
all those, I don't know, likeumbrellas or mushrooms or
whatever they were supposed tobe, yeah.
They changed color um dependingon the music and the notes and
(33:40):
the speed.
They're all different, like someare the like for the bass and
and some are the the treble andall that.
So and then they have tables setup in there that you can just go
with your drinker or whateversit at.
We probably were in there forlike an hour.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just sitting there and it's verymoving.
SPEAKER_01 (33:56):
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (33:58):
And then the last one is um, like have you seen
those Moroccan lanterns?
That's right, with the cutouts.
With the cutouts.
And uh that was a veryinteractive one where you can
spin these things around.
They're huge.
SPEAKER_01 (34:14):
Right, right.
They're like eight, nine feettall or something.
SPEAKER_00 (34:16):
And you can spin them around and then the lights
can go, don't go getting dizzy.
SPEAKER_01 (34:19):
Yeah, you could get dizzy.
SPEAKER_00 (34:21):
And then they had uh some of them look like a half a
dome, and then they had thoseinside, and you could sit in
there and just experience again,music's playing.
Yeah, beautiful.
So cool.
SPEAKER_01 (34:31):
And then we ran into the lady, uh, what's her name?
Uh Kathy.
Yeah, Kathy.
Okay, so we met Kathy when wewalked in to first got there.
SPEAKER_00 (34:41):
Well, okay, we were standing in line at the bar.
But I'm sure you guys all knewthat.
SPEAKER_01 (34:47):
As one does.
Um so we're standing in line atthe bar and we were looking at
the wine selections because wewanted to get glasses of wine,
and this woman was standingbehind us or something, and she
said, I don't, in her cutesouthern accent, I don't know
anything about Kentucky orsomething.
She's from Kentucky.
I don't know anything aboutwine.
I guess I I said, Well, whatkind of wine do you like?
Do you like white or red?
(35:08):
She said, Well, I like whiteZinfandel.
I said, Do you're in winecountry, California?
I was teasing her.
I said, Do not say that out loudhere.
So anyway, we had a good laugh,went about our way.
And then at that last stage ofthe display, we saw her and her
son.
Yes.
And so we went up to her to sayhello, and she told her son,
(35:30):
these are the ladies that toldme not to say that.
I didn't even know out loud.
And we sat and had a lovelyconversation.
Yeah, they were lovely.
Again, Facebook because we'remillennial.
SPEAKER_00 (35:42):
I mean, I was a millennial.
I'm Generation Jones.
SPEAKER_01 (35:47):
So uh so highly recommend Sensoria.
SPEAKER_00 (35:52):
Oh, very cool place.
Well, they and they said theyhave plans to expand even more.
Yeah, I was talking to one ofthe guys that worked there, and
he said um he pointed out thisone particular hillside, and he
said they're gonna extend thelights up to this hillside so it
looks like an infinity lightsinto infinity, and then they're
gonna build a hotel up there.
SPEAKER_01 (36:13):
Yeah, yeah.
And then there's some uh plansfor a housing development to go
in nearby, which is interesting.
But I mean it's a big it there'snothing up there in those hills.
SPEAKER_00 (36:24):
No cows, no grapes, you know, only lights.
Just lights, just twinklylights, which uh are my
favorite.
SPEAKER_01 (36:31):
Right, as we yeah, we learned everything sparkly
and twinkly now.
Another thing we did while wewere there is we hit a couple of
thrift stores because you know Ilike to thrift.
And I you were so kind to goalong with me.
Let me show you.
SPEAKER_00 (36:45):
You showed me the beautiful, the beautiful uh I
desanitized when I came out.
I was like, where's the handsanitizer?
SPEAKER_01 (36:55):
You showed me the beautiful towns and the light
show, and I showed you thegoodwill.
SPEAKER_00 (37:02):
Goodwills.
No, that was cool.
That was funny.
One man's trash is another man'streasure.
That's true.
That's true.
SPEAKER_01 (37:10):
We the next day we went back to um the ocean
because we love it.
SPEAKER_00 (37:16):
As we call it in California, the coast, as
opposed as opposed to the east,eastern United States.
I call it the shore.
The shore, okay.
SPEAKER_01 (37:23):
We have a coast, they have a short time.
We have a coast, they have ashore.
How funny.
It's funny those terms that youuse.
Uh we went to what was thatother time?
Morro Bay.
Morro Bay.
We went to Morro Bay.
And um thick fog.
We haven't seen thick fog likethat in a long time.
That's going through the hills.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (37:40):
It was it was it was like white out.
SPEAKER_01 (37:43):
Yeah, yeah.
It was you gotta follow thatwhite line on the side of the
road kind of driving.
SPEAKER_00 (37:48):
You did a great job.
Thank you.
We made it back safely.
SPEAKER_01 (37:53):
We went out to the rock, Morrow Rock, that day, and
we watched some surfers.
That was very cool.
Um, walked around that town alittle bit again.
SPEAKER_00 (38:02):
Oh, we went to my favorite little garden shop
there.
SPEAKER_01 (38:05):
Overpriced.
SPEAKER_00 (38:06):
I cannot afford it, but I get lots of ideas.
I know, and you did, you didrecreate a little I did.
One year I saw I found this,they had this cute little
plastic lantern with a fakeflame in it, and they had it
decorated on top with garlandystuff for Christmas, and I think
they wanted like eighty-fivedollars for it.
What?
And um, so I made me one.
(38:28):
I ordered the eight dollar thingfrom from Amazon, and I had some
leftover garland stuff.
And you zhit it so much it up,and you loved it.
I made you one.
I know, I loved it, I know, andit didn't even cost me$85.
SPEAKER_01 (38:41):
Battery-powered little flame that doesn't give
off heat, but no ambiance.
That's right.
SPEAKER_00 (38:46):
It's all about the ambiance.
But it's a cute store, they havesome great stuff, it smells
really good in there.
SPEAKER_01 (38:51):
Yeah, yeah, they have oh beautiful things.
SPEAKER_00 (38:53):
Yeah, Morrow Bay is pretty cool.
We went over to the rock, walkedaround the rock.
Yeah, not on it.
You're not allowed on it.
It's huge.
Plus, you don't want to goanywhere, it's covered with
seagulls centuries of seagullpoo.
SPEAKER_01 (39:05):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (39:05):
Um, but what we did realize, and I believe it was
when we were there, we shouldhave put brought um our beach
chairs.
SPEAKER_01 (39:13):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, because we could have justsat there and had snacks and we
had waters and yeah.
So next time yeah, next timewe're packing the beach chairs.
You know, we're boomers, we'rehow old we've been on how many
road trips together with ourfamily.
Yeah.
You'd think we would know bynow.
I know.
SPEAKER_00 (39:29):
What the heck?
We'll get we'll figure it out.
We'll get it.
We could have just bought somechairs.
SPEAKER_01 (39:34):
We could have done that too.
At the thrift store.
At the thrift store.
Oh my god.
Okay, so uh the next day weokay, we got a call the day I
think we were at I can'tremember if it was the day we
were in Cayucos or when we wereat Morrow Bay, but you got a
(39:56):
call from your son.
Yeah, my son called me.
I was about the guy's and theguy's dad.
And he started giving you theguy's phone number to reach out
to him and call.
We don't know.
Ums a guy, my son knows yourson, and he asked me to call me.
SPEAKER_00 (40:11):
Well, my son, the fisherman, who fishes with this
other guy that's uh uh sponsoredby Troublemaker.
Um, my son calls me and he'slike, Okay, so I talked to
White, and that's the kid's namethat's uh sponsored by
Troublemaker.
Right.
And he goes, he goes, so you hesaid to give his dad a call
because his dad is the vineyardmanager for La Aventure winery.
(40:35):
And um he goes, and and andhe'll he'll he'll talk to you
and all this type of stuff.
And I'm like, does he know I'mcalling?
I'm like, now it's awkward,right?
Um how do we apply a cold call?
I'm sorry, I don't do that.
But um can you just call for me?
But anyway, we did.
(40:55):
We reached out to the guy, andand you and I both knew it was
gonna be uh really a kind of abad time because it's the crush,
they're processing all thosegrapes and everything like that.
Um, but we did call um DaveDeBusque.
Super nice guy.
SPEAKER_01 (41:09):
Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00 (41:09):
And he's like, you know, I'm kind of busy right
now, but what about Sunday, ohno, Saturday morning?
Yeah, I can meet you at at thewinery and I can talk to you and
show you around.
You go down, was it 46 and thento the winery, and then he goes,
when you get to the to this tothis road, I cannot remember
what it was called now all of asudden.
Um he goes, you know, hang rightand then follow it till it ends.
(41:33):
It becomes a dirt road.
Becomes a dirt road battle gradeexactly go through all these and
then there'll be a gate.
Push the button.
The red button.
The red button.
Push the red button and the gatewill open.
And I was like, okay, so we didthat.
We're like, are we sneaking in?
I mean, there was nobody there,it was early in the morning.
And we get up there and he said,You'll meet us at the taste
(41:55):
room.
So we're and people were showingup for work.
For breakfast or oh, and forbreakfast wine.
And for breakfast wine.
Yeah.
Um, and we didn't realize tillwe left that the gate closes
after everybody.
SPEAKER_01 (42:05):
So everyone has to push the red button.
SPEAKER_00 (42:07):
Everybody, we we weren't that special.
Yeah.
Um, but anyway, Dave was sonice.
He spent a couple hours with usand he showed us everything
about that.
Uh it was a maze.
For instance, you know, theyalways say, Oh, this used to be
the sea floor.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And you're like, whatever.
Yeah, right.
(42:28):
Okay.
But then he takes us out intothe vineyard and he says, This
is the shale from the sea floor,and it is light as a feather.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (42:36):
The dirt.
SPEAKER_00 (42:37):
It is a choke.
SPEAKER_01 (42:39):
Yeah.
Or limestone shell.
SPEAKER_00 (42:41):
Something like that.
And so then, yeah, limestoneshale.
I don't know.
Anyway.
Ocean floor.
Ocean floor.
The ocean floor was so light.
And then um he also showed uswhere they that they had got
some fossils like a seashell,um, um uh vertebrae.
Right whale vertebrae.
SPEAKER_01 (42:58):
A bone, yeah, big huge bone on so that they dug up
with so when they okay, let'stalk about this place.
Um give a little bit of thehistory.
Uh the owner French from France.
Um the owner is a Frenchman, andwhen he bought the property
(43:18):
here, he thought it remindedhim, I guess, the the soil or
whatever, the location, theweather, all this stuff.
The terroir.
It all uh reminded him ofproperty in Champagne region.
So he bought this property andit was all just um dirt and what
(43:39):
what did he say?
Trees, I guess.
Yeah, there was nothing.
No, it was not it, it was notimproved.
Right, right, no grapes.
Uh he has built the mostbeautiful tasting oh my gosh.
It's amazing.
Um, and it's it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00 (43:52):
They have their own little nursery there where they
grow their own rootstock, therootstock, and then they'll
they'll splice on another,whatever you call that.
Graft it on.
Graft on.
They have people that come andgraft and they for the different
varietals that they do.
SPEAKER_01 (44:07):
They do so much though.
SPEAKER_00 (44:08):
Um, so that was interesting.
We've never actually seen thatbefore, so it was pretty cool.
Yeah, and then um he showed ustheir you know, their big tanks
where they're processing thewine and how they pump them over
and everything.
Super cool.
And then he where did he takeus, Monica?
SPEAKER_01 (44:23):
He took us to the cave.
So I'm thinking I've been up toa couple of caves.
We've been to some caves.
Yeah.
Caves up here in the foothillsand one in uh Sonoma.
SPEAKER_00 (44:33):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (44:34):
Um, but this isn't a cave.
SPEAKER_00 (44:37):
This is like an underground 30,000 square foot.
I thought that there was gonnabe a nuclear missile coming up,
lifting up out of there.
SPEAKER_01 (44:47):
I know, so we still go through this giant iron door
into the dirt weren't anysoldiers standing by it, which
made it super suspicious for me,NORAD.
Yeah, he opens this giant irondoor into the hillside, and we
walk in.
I am not kidding you, it wasunreal.
(45:08):
The it 30,000 square feet ofcave.
SPEAKER_00 (45:12):
And a lot of these caves that we've been in before,
it's like somebody, you know,not even just dug a hole, they
just like built a room onto theedge of a rock wall and call it
a cave.
But no, no, this was bored.
SPEAKER_01 (45:25):
Yes, from two sides, two ends.
They they came at one end, didso much of it, you know, um
reinforced the structure andeverything.
And again, this is old seafloor,right?
Ocean floor.
Um and then they've got theseuh, I think three rooms that you
(45:47):
can go into and have a winetasting experience.
We thought they should havetheir staff meetings in there.
SPEAKER_00 (45:54):
Well, uh it's a work, they're working case.
SPEAKER_01 (45:56):
Yes, yes.
So these little rooms have theexposed wall of the dirt, and
he's also all the sediment.
He reaches over and grabs apiece of the wall and just
breaks it off like because itwas that brittle.
SPEAKER_00 (46:09):
Yeah, and and so it you see all the sediment layers,
right?
And you can see the tectonicmovement and in those layers and
how they jut upward.
Yeah, and yeah, it wasbeautiful, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (46:21):
I mean, it was beautiful, beautiful, and the
the caves are lined with alltheir barrels.
I don't know how many hundredsof barrels they had in there,
but that's and the temperatureis completely controlled because
it's underground.
Yeah, so they have he showed usthey have these little what do
you call them for your air aircleaning?
(46:42):
Like a thermostat.
Like a thermostat in in every sooften along the caves.
And he said, Okay, it tells youwhat the temperature is here,
what the moisture level is.
CO2.
Yep, CO2, and then you said it'sit's the canary.
The canary from the caves.
SPEAKER_00 (46:59):
Canary in the mine shaft.
Yeah, yeah.
And he goes, That's exactly whatit is.
It tells us if there's anythingwrong.
They have a very intricatesystem of maintaining the air
quality, the safety.
They have a lot of vents,including one place, just one.
So they have vents on the on theground, right?
Drains and all that.
Yeah, but they have one areawhere if you stand on it, your
(47:21):
voice echoes.
Yeah, it was.
And it's no different than anyof the other areas that you know
visually, right?
But this only in this one place.
Only this one place.
And he said they found that byaccident.
It's their little winery mysteryspot.
That's right.
There's probably a bumpersticker.
Um but we he's at one point hesays, Well, do you know how deep
we are?
I'm like, I don't know, like 10,15 foot.
(47:42):
And he's 60 foot deep.
Yeah, it didn't even feel thatway.
The pictures we have areamazing.
SPEAKER_01 (47:47):
I know, I know.
Well we'll put those onInstagram.
SPEAKER_00 (47:50):
Yeah, we'll put them on Instagram.
SPEAKER_01 (47:52):
Absolutely beautiful.
La Aventure.
I'm probably not saying itright.
SPEAKER_00 (47:57):
I don't speak French, but it's not adventure,
it's adventure, so it's laAventure because the owner um he
sold two chateaus in France andthen traveled the world trying
to find the right place to be,and this was his adventure.
Yes, yes, this was hisadventure.
SPEAKER_01 (48:18):
Anyway, it's and Dave was oh, Dave was awesome.
And a wealth of information.
Um but they're barrels.
Let's talk a little bit aboutthe barrels.
So I I didn't know this, but uhlike the wine regions, and I
might not have this exactlyright, but like the wine regions
in France, the barrel industry,the barrel making industry, I
(48:40):
forgot what it's called, is uhvery regulated in France.
So apparently a uh barrel makingcompany, what there's a name for
they're coupon benders, they'recoopers, right?
SPEAKER_00 (48:52):
They're benders, they're coopers, but the benders
are the ones that put it all toYeah, make the slats and all
that.
SPEAKER_01 (48:58):
Okay.
So very regulated.
So a Cooper is allotted a forestor a section of a forest, and
that is it.
Yep.
They can only get their woodfrom there, they can't go
outside of it.
You know, they're licensed forthat or somehow regulated.
And La Venture uses, I think, adozen or so Coopers.
(49:20):
And so they have these barrelsshipped over from France and
they use them one time.
Yeah.
And then they uh resell them.
Um but very interesting.
And so their cave again, as Isaid, is lined with all their
barrels of wine and again thetemperature regulation or the
(49:42):
temperature control, and becausethey're able to line the caves,
and they're still, I don't know,10-15 feet in the middle to walk
through, um, they're able totest and sample and look at
their every barrel just standingthere.
They don't have to climb upladders.
Exactly.
Yeah, a lot of wineries storagespace is um because I don't
(50:04):
know, don't they have to turnthem or do something like that?
SPEAKER_00 (50:06):
No, maybe not in the barrel.
Maybe there's just the bottle.
But anyway, they don't have toclimb up on a big ladder for the
rack.
It's all at the waste level.
SPEAKER_01 (50:14):
And these barrels are beautiful.
I mean, I just have visions ofbarrels in my backyard.
SPEAKER_00 (50:18):
I can see that in your backyard.
Big barrels of wine.
Party at Monica's house.
SPEAKER_01 (50:23):
So the owner's name is Stefan Aseo.
Uh he does not play around withhis winery and his wine.
SPEAKER_00 (50:32):
Very serious.
SPEAKER_01 (50:33):
Yeah, yeah.
And it shows.
It shows.
Beautiful place, delicious wine,and um.
SPEAKER_00 (50:42):
The staff are super friendly.
Oh, yeah.
And they do a lot with internsbecause apparently in France it
there's something that they haveto have interns.
SPEAKER_01 (50:55):
Oh, I missed that.
SPEAKER_00 (50:56):
I was probably busy taking notes.
Probably.
She's a note taker.
Um, but then he has uh at hiswinery, he has interns also that
he brings over from France, andhe has some from like Cal Poly's
right there, right?
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo's rightthere and has a huge uh
agricultural studies program,including uh viticulture and and
(51:19):
all that.
So wine making wine stuff.
I was trying to think of theword.
SPEAKER_01 (51:24):
There's like, you know, wine things wine business
stuff, grapes, baking barrel,chemistry.
I don't know.
Looking forward to going back.
Definitely we'll go back there.
SPEAKER_00 (51:37):
I thought we had so much fun at Passerobles.
Yeah, and we that whole area.
SPEAKER_01 (51:41):
Right.
We spent so much time with DaveDeBusque at La Aventure, uh,
that we didn't even get to stopinto Austin Hope's winery, which
was next door.
Right next door.
Next door means down the roadover the cow grate onto the
paved road, I think.
(52:02):
And you know, a mile or so.
No.
Whatever next door is.
SPEAKER_00 (52:05):
That's pretty correct, I think.
SPEAKER_01 (52:07):
Next door in wine country terms.
SPEAKER_00 (52:10):
Yeah.
Uh we didn't get to a we had wehad quite the uh list of places
we were gonna go to, and wedidn't make it to hardly any of
the ones we were going to.
No.
Because we got distracted withall the other stuff that there
is to do down there.
SPEAKER_01 (52:24):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (52:25):
Oh, uh, we went to Tin City.
Oh, Tin City in uh kind of onthe outskirts of Passover Rowls.
SPEAKER_01 (52:32):
Yeah, cool place.
SPEAKER_00 (52:33):
It is cool.
It's like big warehouse type ofbuildings, so they call it Tin
City.
SPEAKER_01 (52:38):
Yeah, there's several buildings.
SPEAKER_00 (52:39):
Uh breweries, distilleries, wineries,
restaurants, everything coffee,desserts.
Yeah, it's a very cool place.
You could spend all day, twodays, three days there and never
touch everything.
SPEAKER_01 (52:55):
Right.
It's a pretty cool place.
We had a delicious lunch at alittle Italian or something like
that.
Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (53:03):
Yeah, they make all their own pasta.
I saw people walking out withbags of pasta.
Yep.
The food was delicious.
It was good.
We were busy.
SPEAKER_01 (53:12):
It was good.
And we went to the little umolive oil and balsamic stores.
SPEAKER_00 (53:17):
Olivos.
Um so that place was prettycool.
They actually they actually saidthey get their olives from
Oraville, which is up northhere.
SPEAKER_01 (53:31):
Yeah, that's funny.
Olivas de Oro, California groundolive oil.
SPEAKER_00 (53:36):
Yeah, and they have all different flavors.
We did a tasting there.
SPEAKER_01 (53:39):
Yeah, we did.
SPEAKER_00 (53:40):
And that was funny because she did a blending of
stuff like right.
SPEAKER_01 (53:45):
Yeah, so let's see.
You have a couple of the bottleshere.
So I think they paired like theuh Meyer Lemon olive oil with
fig white balsamics.
And then the mandarin olive.
That would be like for a saladdressing was delicious, and then
the mandarin orange olive oilwith the vanilla bean balsamic.
(54:06):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (54:07):
And that that tastes like um a cream sickle.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That did, that did.
That's all it took.
I was hooked.
SPEAKER_01 (54:16):
Um, and we went and had glass, I had a glass of wine
and a couple of other littletasting rooms there.
Yep.
Cute places.
We met a uh tasting room dog.
I've heard of it.
SPEAKER_00 (54:26):
A dog from Madagascar.
Yeah.
Looked like a look like aHighland Terrier or something.
Mixed with something else, Idon't know, with a beach on or
something.
I don't know.
I can't remember his name.
I don't know if it was likeWayne or Wally or something.
Wally.
It was Wally.
Wally.
Wally, he was a cutie patootie.
Yeah, just a puppy, too.
Yeah.
He was sweet, and he was he wasin full wine dog mode.
(54:46):
Like he just laid there whenpeople came in and greeted them,
and then he come sit by you.
Like, how's the wine?
Yeah, so it was a great trip.
I want to go, I'm ready to goback.
Well, we gotta go somewhere elsenext time, though.
I know there's so many places togo.
So much wine, so little time.
So if you get a chance to get topass the robles, by all means,
and there's so much more to see.
(55:07):
I mean, you you could take avariety of ways there, but we
took the scenic route.
We went straight down I-5.
It's a garden spot.
SPEAKER_01 (55:15):
The not scenic route.
Um on the way out, okay.
Again, uh we hit it just at theright time, wrong place, wrong
time, actually.
Because there was constructiongoing on on a couple of four
times.
They had me so confused.
I don't know.
We literally looped around likethree to three times.
SPEAKER_00 (55:36):
I was like, oh, okay, it's this way.
This is the ramp we went.
No, nope, nope, flip around, goback again.
Okay, we're gonna catch it thistime.
No, how did we miss it again?
I don't know.
Back at the like three times,but worst case scenario, which
actually would have beenworst-case scenario, we ended up
in Bakersfield.
And then we could just take 99aura.
Right, right, right.
But right after we got back, Isaw this guy on TikTok and he
(55:58):
said, he goes, he's in his car,and he goes, if you're ever
driving through the centralvalley of California on I-5, he
goes, the the left lane, minimum95 miles an hour.
Oh shit.
Do not do not come into thislane unless you're going 95.
Oh my god.
And I'm like, right on.
That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_01 (56:20):
But yeah, good trip.
We're gonna hit the road againhere soon, I think.
Yeah, soon.
We'll see.
We'll see.
I'm going to uh Minneapolis,Minnesota next week.
SPEAKER_00 (56:29):
And you know what they have there?
SPEAKER_01 (56:31):
Wineries.
I know.
So I'm very curious to look atthe wine lists on the menu.
Are they growing wine inMinnesota?
Yeah, they have wineries there.
Are they growing wine?
SPEAKER_00 (56:42):
They're growing grapes for wine grow for wine.
They come in in 750 bottles, 750milliliter bottles.
Or you could get the great bigone.
It's your choice.
Sometimes they come in littlecans, but those are just bigies.
Those are just like buds.
SPEAKER_01 (56:56):
Um, they're grown wine.
I don't know why I was actuallycurious to see how much
California wine is going to beon the menu there.
I'm just curious whichCalifornia wines they'll have.
SPEAKER_00 (57:05):
Guaranteed they'll have Bogle.
unknown (57:07):
Guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (57:08):
Guaranteed.
Yeah.
So we'll see.
Yeah, that'll be fun.
I'm I can't wait for you to comeback after doing all your
research.
SPEAKER_01 (57:13):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (57:14):
So we'll we'll cover that, I'm sure.
All right.
Well, thanks for joining.
See you next time.
Bye.
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