Oak-shaded Adelaida Road
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Oak-shaded Adelaida Road |
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A CRISP WHITE WINE GOES WELL with green olives and Sonoma Jack cheese. It’s especially appropriate here, off Adelaida Road in the hills of the Paso Robles wine country in central California. The view from the patio, just outside the tasting room at Tablas Creek Vineyard, encompasses row after row of syrah vines. Beyond the green of the vines is the yellow swath of a mustard field, and then the dark shades of tall, century-old blue gum trees.
Just off the patio, in the garden, Disneyland rose bushes are decorated with pink-orange blooms. The roses are surrounded by lavender and rosemary, and their herbal fragrances season the air as the wine, the olives, and the view are enjoyed. |
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IN ADDITION TO Tablas Creek Vineyard, the locale of this picnic, there are eight other wineries in the area. In fact, Adelaida Road and connecting Chimney Rock Road are close to perfection for an outing in wine country – leisurely winding country roads in beautiful pastoral settings. Adelaida Road passes through shaded canopies of oaks, where birds dart from limb to limb, and then emerges into open vistas of grassland, vineyards, and oaks. This is classic California landscape: rolling, grassy oak-dotted countryside, green in the rainy season, the color of a coyote’s fur in the summer. |
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THIS IS ALSO WINE COUNTRY, and it looks it. It starts in less than a mile, where a vineyard’s rows begin at the roadside and continue all the way to the ridge top. Some vineyards aren’t quite as large, mere islands of grapevines surrounded by the olive green of oak woodland. But most sprawl over hill and valley. In the summer, when the grasslands have been dried to golds and light browns, the greens of the vineyards are a treat for the eye. Most if not all of the wineries are small, with limited production. The fact that the wineries are relatively unknown sometimes lends a sense of revelation to their wines: intense syrahs, flavorful cabernets, floral viogniers, and French-style rhone blends. Links to the wineries’ websites follow, so you can try them for yourself and find your own favorite. |
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| PASO ROBLES IS about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco on Highway 101. Once in Paso Robles, exit the freeway at the Highway 46 exit and turn west. (From Los Angeles, you’ll be turning left; from San Francisco, turn right.) Drive 2.3 miles, through town, past the old cemetery and up a hill, to the left turn onto Adelaida Road. After 11.5 miles, Adelaida Road ends at Chimney Rock Road. A left turn on Chimney Rock Road will bring you to two more wineries; a right turn will reward you with more views of vineyards, grassy savannah and ancient valley oaks. |
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The Wineries Adelaida Road and Chimey Rock Road
Paso Robles
Carmody McKnight Estate Wines, 11240 Chimney Rock Road, Paso Robles CA 9344; telephone (805) 238-9392. Halter Ranch Vineyard, 8910 Adelaida Road, Paso Robles CA 93446; telephone 805) 226-9455. Justin Vineyard and Winery, 11680 Chimney Rock Road, Paso Robles CA 93446; telephone (805) 238-6932. Tablas Creek Vineyard, 9339 Adelaida Road, Paso Robles CA 93446; telephone (805) 237-1231. Thunderbolt Junction Winery, 2740 Hidden Mountain Road, Paso Robles CA 93446; telephone (805) 226-9907. Tolo Cellars, 9750 Adelaida Road, 1A, Paso Robles CA 93446; telephone (805) 226-2282. Villicana Winery, 2735 Adelaida Road, Paso Robles CA 93446; telephone (805) 239-9456. Wild Coyote Estate Winery, 3775 Adelaida Road, Paso Robles CA 93446; telephone (805) 610-1311. |
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