Necessary Consumption

Birthday Extravaganzas! 
Los Olivos, CA

For Julie and Linda's birthdays this year, they enjoyed a little trip into local wine tasting country.  Chauffeured & guided by their lovely children (respectively), we took them on quite a little adventure...

Our journey began in downtown Los Olivos at Panino.  We were anticipating taking our lunch to-go in order to have a picnic at the first winery we went to.  Nico, however, wasn't having it...he needed to eat now.  So, in order to cater to the ravenous male in the group, we ate then and there.  We then grabbed a wine map, our limonatas, and began mapping out a route..

Bridlewood Winery was our first stop.  Here we tasted the succulent Estate Viogner.  It had great charisma in the glass, with bright fruit flavors of nectarine and honeysuckle.  After tasting, I got separated from the group as I ventured out to take pictures of anything & everything.  I could have taken pictures for hours if time was on our side.

Our next stop was my mother's suggestion; Beckman Vineyard.  I was glad to go here because it is right in the neighborhood of where we already were.  Beckman Winery was supposedly well-known for its Syrahs, which my mother fawns over.  Personally, I had never been a fan of Syrahs, so I was unsure of how I would like their wines.  HOWEVER, after tasting these Syrahs, specifically the Purisima Block 6 2005 vintage, I may be a syrah convert.  Well, for now at least.

On our way to our next spot of vino bliss, we drove by a blur of purple fields.  Lavender!  It looked like a whole city block of just lavender plants.  It was gorgeous.  We pulled off to the side of the road to have a sniff of the soothing aromatic plants.  In the lavender stand, Julie came across free wine tasting tickets in for Fess Parker Winery....perfect.

You can guess where our next stop might have been...

The tasting glasses were free too...right Mom?