Paso Robles Day 1

Behind the Blue Door

The Paso Wine Fest Entrance

The weather is so untypical for California that I wonder if I've actually left Northern Europe! It's a melancholy sky that can either be interpreted as Los Angeles not wanting me to leave, or Paso Robles unhappy that I'm about to arrive.

I watch the car's temperature gauge like a train spotter after too much caffeine, and it's only as we are a few miles from Paso (as the locals call it) that the weather starts to lean towards the predictably hot.

The sun has appeared, and the temperature climbs quickly until it becomes as hot as an oven, as I cruise into the town and stop at the downtown square for a quick look around.

There's a farmers market on, but like most markets where you've no interest or urge to buy, it becomes a thing to rush through, as though you're ticking off an experience to tell the folks back home.

Downtown Paso Robles seems to be a cross between Healdsburg and Sonoma Squares, which are picturesque slices of an America that doesn’t quite exist in the numbers you want.

These locations are dotted around wine country and are great to grab a picnic and a bottle of something local before taking a moment to pause and think.

I'm quite excited, because after the waste of shopping experiences in the Los Angeles super malls, these shops and restaurants are much more manageable concepts to deal with. I'm also pleased to notice that there are a fair number of tasting rooms waiting to be entered. I smile, I sigh and I feel calm because my mission, my purpose for the visit has put itself right back into the centre of my thoughts.

There is a temptation to ponder over a glass, to test the viticultural waters, but I have to stay strong because I have an appointment to keep, after finding find my hotel.

It’s a nice place that’s not too flashy. On the right side of aged, but the wrong side of the tracks. I'm happy that I've chosen it, because on the way in I noticed a few places that would have given hovels a bad name. To be fair, I did also see a lovely looking place on the square that made me quite envious.

I'm situated a little far from downtown, as though somebody who was tidying up a game of Monopoly dropped a hotel and then forgot to pick it up.

Thankfully, the Paso Wine Fest is a perfect five minute walk away, and when I'm told this I welcome the news.

Red Square

Look Through Any Window

Things take an even better turn when the hotel clerk asks my profession and the utterance of wine writer brings forth a bottle of Rosé to try. The people who own the hotel also own a winery and would like feedback. Well, it would be churlish to refuse.

Unpacked, changed and comfy shoes put on, I saunter down to the Paso Wine Fest (more next page) and I'm glad that it's not too far because that miserable sky of earlier has now decided to throw off a raging heat.

Back to the hotel afterwards and I realise just how far out of town the hotel is. If Paso Robles has a railway track this would be firmly on the wrong side.

To get into town, or out to the hotel I have to cross a few empty lots and wastelands where the homeless eek out desperate lives with little hope of realising any dream, particularly the American one.

I notice that some are army vets who've obviously fallen on hard times, or ruined bodies and minds in rusty wheelchairs peddle back and forth going nowhere in every sense of the word. They often raise their voices to imaginary people about imaginary slights, while others sprawl in cars and vans that will never go, deluding themselves it'll be okay tomorrow, but knowing deep down that tomorrow will never come their way.

Over time, where do this rag-tag of America's debris actually end up (if you have the answer, please tell me)? After the joys of the Paso Wine Fest it’s quite a contrast that's hard to take. They're partying hard five minutes away, talking about vintages and farming difficulties that are nothing compared to the harsh difficulties faced by those living in this town's filthy underbelly! It's so sad that I cannot bear to take a single photograph but know I should have taken many.

Later, I head back into Paso Robles Town Square (by car because I might be able to drive quick enough not to feel too guilty for being the coward that I am) and once again I walk around that pretty square, surrounded by eateries, and I can’t decide which to choose in a facile way that makes the reality of earlier seem distant and dreamy .

Most of these scoff-centres are full, and lines of eager eaters wait patiently for a table, burying their heads to the troubled people on the edge of their town. Have they really forgotten, or simply no longer see them?

My mind continues to delude itself as I search menus eagerly, and I'm lucky to wash up at a place called, ‘Taste’. I'm told that it once featured on an episode of ‘Drivers, Diners and Dives’ or whatever that show is called, but don't let that put you off. It's a fine show with some very good recommendations, often at competitive prices, and the minute I taste the food inside I know why it made the cut in that show, because the grub at 'Taste' is so very tasty.

The menu seems to feature tapas, but with a twist of sliders, mac & cheese and other sorts of edible godsends in small bites. If you can't find anything to your taste here you're probably dead!

Choice is so easy because there's so much to recommend. It’s even easier when you eat it, and far too easy to want to dive in for seconds, but after an impossible burger slider with peppers, and a mac & cheese with blue cheese and jalapeños I feel I should quit while my stomach can take it. I've got a lot of culinary mileage to cover on this trip.

After a quick walk so that I feel as if I'm trying to get exercise, I head back to the hotel and a couple of wines at a bar that feels as though it's only pretending to serve drinks until something better comes along.

It's not open every night, but tonight I'm lucky, well except for the four loud folks who brag about their small lives in a way that makes you want to grab them and show them the poor folks across the way!

To take my mind off hearing about Tesla Toss-Tanks and swimming pools the size of counties, I have a Merlot that starts dodgy and gets worse, becoming so thick I almost have to wade through it. I so wanted a wine that would wash the bragging clowns out of my mind.

Back in the room I open the Rosé I was given earlier and take a glass. It’s okay, but won’t win any of the prizes that seem to be the benchmark for wines of class around here, and talking points when being poured at the Paso Wine Fest.

If they've won a prize, or ribbon, at a tasting the people will tell you in no uncertain terms that it makes the wine worth trying. I don't think they understand my mantra of the best wine being the wine you're enjoying at a particular moment.

Prizes rarely tell a history or take account of the setting, but to some I've met today a wine can only be talked about if it wins something, and I don't mean a place in our hearts and memories, and I'm not sure how many extra bottles it actually sells.

That ends my first day in Paso Robles, an enjoyable little wine town with a lot to offer. On previous trips I'd only stopped on the outskirts, but after this day of juxtaposition it will be one of the first things on my list of places to revisit in California.

Of course it has its problems, and I think it only fair that these should be acknowledged in detail, but it also needs to be said that Paso Robles is a fine place to visit, stay, taste and get to know.

Can it get any better? We'll find out after the piece about the Paso Wine Fest.

Paso in Sepia