Wine Time

The rolling hills of vines of Four Vines, a winery in Paso Robles

A few days ago I headed down to San Luis Obispo with Cody to see our CPA and finally get our taxes done. Yeah, it's 4 months past the deadline but considering it happens during the busiest part of the ski season the task is unfathomable. Rightly so, the ability to file an extension is every professional skier's best friend. Who wants to deal with taxes when they can choose to head to the office and rip some powder?

On my way to taste some wine, niccce.

After a relatively painless appointment of realizing we owe the government nothing short of our blood, we wanted to take advantage of being in the heart of Cali's Central Coast wine region and visit one of our best friends, George Hjelte, who works at Four Vines in Paso Robles. There are some truly killer wines coming from this region. The central coast is like every other region that is not Napa: it is generally cheaper, less pretentious, and overlooked by the average joe because it is simply not Napa. The warmer temperatures that the central valley receives allows for wineries to experiment with all kinds of grape varietals akin to France's Rhone Valley and Spain's Rioja Valley. Not to say that a great Cab is short of praise, it is nice to be exposed to grape varietals that can be appreciated for their own unique and exceptional qualities.

Cody and George working hard

Once we got to Four Vines we didn't beat around the bush, we immediately headed to the cave to barrel taste with George. We tried several Zinfandels, Mourvedre, Grenache, Malbec, Tinto Cao, Syrah, a few blends... We were putting our noses to work to say the least (75% of what we perceive to taste is actually smell, that's a fact you can look up). Anyway, I got to try some noteworthy wine, get a little buzz (I'm not a spitter), see a great friend and ultimately end the day on a good note.

George monkeying around to get to the goods

Why not?