Sunday, May 11th
After a lovely (included) breakfast at the Embassy Suites, we took of toward our planned first stop this morning: Demetria Estates. Gael had made arrangements for our arrival at 10A -- but there was a gate and we didn't know the code. We called the winery number and got an answering machine; bummer! We decided to move on to the next closest winery on our Sunday list and left word on the answering machine.
Just down the road from Demtria is Koehler Winery. We weren't scheduled there until 2:30p, but it was so close by:
Fortunately, they were open and Dan was glad to see us
-- and he was actually expecting us this afternoon! I've said often that the person behind the counter has as much to do with the wine tasting experience as the wine does -- and this was such an example. Dan was great; even tried on a tiara (you don't get that everywhere!).
What is it about winery and cats? Almost every one seems to have one or two:
Dan was nice enough to take a group photo:
Just as we were finishing at Koehler, my cell phone rang. It was Lee at Demetria asking that we please come back; he'd been on the phone when we called. He gave us the gate code and off we went.
When we got through the gate we thought we'd see the winery right away. But no, the road wound 'round and 'round and up hills covered in grape vines:
Then we came to another gate (same gate code) and the more winding around until we found the winery at the top of a hill.
What a beautiful place! There were vineyards in all directions:
Though only a few years old, they'd made the stucco look like it had been there for years:
I really liked this birdhouse:
Lee met us and told us the history of the winery:
.. (it's only been here two years) - and the tasting began. What wonderful wines!
While we were working with Lee, a man came in with a handful of roses and started arranging them in wine glasses:
He turned out to be the owner, John Zahoudanis:
He's a welcoming, personable man; beautiful spot, great wine, meeting the owner? Can it get any better? As a matter of fact...
We were joined by the lady of the manor, John's wife, Sandra. Turns out she's a Southern girl originally from South Carolina. She and Fran (and the rest of us) clicked at once!
She looks a lot like Paula Deen, doesn't she?
This looked like a great spot for a photo of John and Sandra:
As a special treat, we were allowed a barrel tasting of their signature wine "Cuvee Sandra" named after guess who; bottling will start in a few weeks, and we ordered futures; wonderful, wonderful wine.
We didn't have a good time at Demetria; no, not at all:
Sandra asked us which wineries we were planning to visit and we shared the list. She made some suggestions and then asked that when were done (on Wednesday afternoon) we return to Demetria and tell her if we found any better-tasting wines than hers. We said we'd try; what gracious treatment we received. It'll be hard to top the Demetria experience.
Here's our group shot on the patio at Demetria:
What a shame that Newsom and Beverly missed this one!
The next winery on our list was Epiphany Cellars. The winery and last night's restaurant only share a name; they aren't otherwise related.
On to the last winery of the day, Santa Barbara Winery:
This is where Newsom and Beverly joined us; they had to come a day late and missed everything so far. It's too bad, too, because the Santa Barbara Winery experience was our first real dud. Wines not interesting and the staff wasn't interested in us:
The women are faking it; the men, not so much:
. We killed enough time so that the Bakers could join us:
We weren't TOO early for dinner at Bouchon.
Dinner at Bouchon was excellent:
It was the first time all eight of us dined together and a grand old time was had by all -- followed by a one+ hour, three-car caravan (the Baker's had rented one from LAX) to the hotel.
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