AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

We just got back from a four day jaunt to San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles to attend the 2009 Paderewski Festival.

Say, what?

Yep, we got kultcha.  Although, I have to say, if this hadn’t been connected to wine tasting I might not have opted in.  Wine or not, I was glad we did.  The inspirations were my fraternity bros, Paul and Chuck.   Paul lives in SLO and provided the B&B base of operations.  Chuck provided the connection to the festival as he takes piano lessons from the principal organizer.  We provided the lasagna and comic relief.

Having Paul’s house as a home port, we left the rig here and saved the $135 in gas it would have eaten.  We went instead in the very versatile VW van that Chuck had loaned us last summer to go to Stanford Camp, complete with canine companion, Axel:

We had a beautiful drive up the Malibu coast on Hwy 1, joining the US 101 in Oxnard.  The ocean views sure beat the traffic on the freeway route through the Valley.  We got there around 2:30 and set to getting in an early dinner as we had to get to Paso for the first wine reception and event by 6:00.  Paul popped a couple of very nice bottles, Loni’s lasagna got reheated, good crunchy bread and salad, and we were mellow in no time.  Fortunately, Chuck is not into the drink, so we could waft our way to Paso in (relative) safety.

The first event was at the Vina Robles Winery for a performance by the Denali String Quartet , a Los-Angeles-based superb group.

The winery has a new tasting facility which has an outstanding concert room, very tastefully decorated.  Alas, I left my camera at Paul’s so no photos.  They give a series of concerts there, and it is a great venue.  Not so great was their cheapo approach to the wine reception.  One small taste of a new rose’, which actually was pretty good, given I’m not big on rose’s.  But thereafter everything was on a pay-per-glass basis.  And no munchies.  Boooo.  The concert, however, more than made up for it.  They were excellent.  We heard

Villa-Lobos: String Quartet No. 5

Gorecki: String Quartet No. 1, "Already It Is Evening"

Brahms: String Quartet in A Minor

I won’t pretend to be familiar with any of it, but it sure was good.  Our resident music expert, Chuck, agreed.

Next day we took off for a bit of wine tasting, heading first for Chateau Margene, getting there before the gates opened at noon.

This is a beautiful property, as are nearly all the vineyards in this area.  We were after some more of the Sangiovese that Paul had poured on Thursday, and they didn’t disappoint.  We tried about eight wines, including some very-very-reserve stuff that went for $150 per bottle.  The guy pouring, nephew of the owner, said he goofed and opened that by mistake.  Actually, it wasn’t much different from the ones we liked at one-fifth the price.  We got a bottle of the 06 Cab, and one of the 06 “Cielo Rosso” which is 73% Sangiovese and the rest Cab.  These are great now, but will age for another few years.  They won’t last that long around here.

Next stop was one of our favorites, the Cass Winery. 

We’d been there before, and had a great lunch, so we were after the same.  They didn’t disappoint.  Along with tastes of about seven wines, we had splendid crab cakes, a yummy smoked chicken salad, Italian roast beef sandwich with creamy horseradish sauce, and a seven-course cheese sampler:

Rinconada Dairy Chapparral / Central Coast California / Raw sheep & goat's milk
Cypress Grove Midnight Moon / Netherlands / Pasteurized goat's milk
Bravo Farms Western Sage Cheddar / Central California / Raw cow's milk
Beemsters X - O Gouda / Netherlands / Pasteurized cow's milk
Paso Robles Cheese Co. Truffled Goat Cheese / Paso Robles / Pasteurized goat's milk
Rogue River Smokey Blue / Oregon / Raw cow's milk

Oh, yes, it was alllll goooood. 

We picked up two bottles of their 08 “Rockin One, a scrumptious blend of 80% Roussanne and 20% Marsanne.  I love trying grapes that I haven’t had before.  Actually, given what the radiation did to my taste buds, I’m ecstatic to be able to taste wine again at all!

One of the highlights of this trip to Cass was a visit with Anita, the men’s bathroom hostess:

Paul (in the hat in the picture above) is on a first-name basis with nearly every winery in the area, so we got the “Paul Discount” wherever we went.  He also belongs to various wine clubs, and had to pick up an order from one, so we swayed our way to Pipestone Vineyards .  No pictures from there, but but we came away with a bottle each of their 06 Grenache and Zinfandel.  Lip smacking yum, as Robert Parker probably wouldn’t say out loud.

After all this, it was back to Cass for the second concert.  Unlike Vina Robles, Cass had an open tasting and was pouring generously.  They also had some terrific hors d’oeuvres.  The concert this evening was held in the barrel room, which was pretty dark, so my flashless (required) photos didn’t come out.  Instead, here’s a shot of Chuck’s teacher giving a performance in the main room, with the barrel room in the background.

After the concert, which featured a pianist with a pounding left hand which drowned everything out, we went back to Paso in search of a later dinner.  We lucked out and found “Chico’s.”  This is literally a hole-in-the-wall, wedged almost invisibly between a Coldstone Creamery and Lombardi’s, an Italian place, all on the square; but do yourself a favor and eat there when you are in Paso.  The owner is the chef, a relative is the waitress, and the food is delicious.  The owner is a former cook at a seafood restaurant on the beach in Cambria, up the coast.  This is his first place of his own, and I hope he makes it.  I had fat, juicy, tender scallops in a garlic and caper sauce.  Oooooooohhhhmmmmm.

Saturday we stuck around the house and watched the Stanford – USC slaughter.  We were bouncing off the walls.  55-21!  Revenge for decades of being squashed by the pros from SC. 

We giggled our way off to an entirely forgettable early dinner at “Matthews” in Paso.  In a word, don’t.  I even sent my “Caesar” salad back with instructions to take it off my bill.  You don’t have to be a connoisseur to know that Caesars don’t come with:  tomato slices, greek olives, and red onion slices.  And, if you’re going to boast on the menu that it is prepared in a wood bowl rubbed with garlic (it wasn’t, admitted the hostess), then don’t serve wilted greens with fake bottled goop and call it a Caesar.  The less said the better about the rest of this turkey.  The main event of the festival was held in the 100+ year-old hall at the Paso Robles Inn.  This is a venue that Paderewski himself actually played in back in the early 1900s.  For those, like me, without a clue, Ignacy Jan Paderewski (b 1860, d 1941) was a virtuoso pianist, composer, politician (first Prime Ministers of independent Poland after WWI), and orator, who visited Paso Robles many times between 1914 and 1939, buying tracts of land and starting one of the earliest vineyards in the area.  The Festival was started in 1993 to commemorate his association with the area.  At the final event, the Poland Consul General from Los Angeles attended.  We had more good wine to taste, and this time had a top-notch performance by Polish pianist Hubert Rutkowski.

If you’ll indulge me, I was transfixed by this recital.  I had a great view of his hands.  My best description would be that he caressed the keys into submission.  I can appreciate, but not comprehend, talent like his.

OK, we return you now to the usual boorish reporting.  We had a grand time.  We made our way safely back to Paul’s (about 25 miles), tuned and retuned every sports recap we could find on the satellite about the Stanford win, and went to bed with Gerhart  pounding runs and Love pinpoint passes dancing in our heads.  Life is good.

Sunday morning it was blueberry waffles, thick-cut bacon, fresh ground coffee and oranges picked from Paul’s tree.  Thus endeth the Central Coast sojourn.