jaredleon

My wife and i are thinking about going to the central coast for a vacation. we have been to napa and sonoma on 2 occations and thought it would be be nice to try a different place and one where we were less familiar with the wineries. i am looking for help regarding the wineries as well as places to stay. thanks in advance for any suggestions.

jaredleon

i guess we are thinking about going even farther south like paso robles area.

sightseer

Paso Robles is a great alternative winery region. Much less traffic to deal with than the Napa area. Some of my favorites in the area include: Wild Horse, Eberle and Bonny Doon.

As for places to stay, I'd suggest finding a hotel along Moonstone Beach in Cambria. Robin's and Sow's Ear are both good restaurant choices in Cambria.

Chico

We just did a trip to the Central Coast area for wine tasting etc. The Santa Inez Valley area is beautiful, between Santa Maria and Santa Barbara, lots of great wineries. We stayed at the Ballard Inn in Ballard which is a beautiful B&B.

sgbslo

There are lots of very good wineries to visit in the Paso Robles area and also near San Luis Obispo in the Edna Valley region.
A central location would be San Luis Obispo. Check the Garden Street Inn or Petit Soleil for places to stay.
You can find more information at the website: visitslo.com

moneygirl

jaredleon, How many days will you be here? If you only have a few days, you'll probably want to stay in the Santa Ynez area. In my opinion, they have the nicest and the most "open full time" wineries. Paso Robles and the San Luis Obispo area have nice wineries also, but many are open very limited days and hours. Do a text search here on "Santa Ynez" and youwill find information on specific wineries and places to stay.

curmudgeon

If you can dig up old issues of Sunset magazine at your local library, they tend to have good ideas and itineraries for central coast wine trips every few months.

jason888

I have not been wine-tasting in that area for many years, but my remembrance is that in San Luis Obispo area, Estrella River Winery, Mastantuono, and York Mountain were among my favorites. (York Mountain had a muscatel that was truly great, but, because it came only in 1/2 gallon size, it was considered a "rot gut" wine. Which is truly sad, considering that it's really difficult to grow that much in muscat grapes)

In the Santa Barbara area, there is the very famous Firestone Winery, also Zaca Mesa, Ballard Canyon.

There are loads of wineries - and the countryside is beautiful too. As someone has suggested, if you go, check out the hours when they are open. Also, some of the smaller vineyards do not have set visitors hours and you may have to notify them of the date and time of your arrival. I'd do this only if that winery had some wine that you simply had to taste/buy.

What a great trip! Have a wonderful time!

hlphillips2

We did this trip in June and had a great time! The visitslo.com website is great, although you'll get the best map from your hotel. Also ask other wineries to recommend locations to visit. In Los Olivos (cute town) there are several tasting rooms, plus a restaurant / tasting room which we thoroughly enjoyed.

LDLee

My wife and I really enjoy Cambria, as a beach town. A little smaller than San Luis Obispo, and about as far from Paso Robles.

Enjoyed most of the wineries in the area. You have to go to Wild Horse (thank you Kam).

While in the area, you should also visit the Hearst Castle.

wagsdvm

A recent Wine Spectator issue had a story about driving the vineyards from Santa Barbara up to SFO (June issue??). Also, this month's issue profiles Pinot Noir vineyards on Central Coast with lots of good info.

I have made various trips throughout the area and would definitely recommend Cambria as a nice place to stay. Great seafood at the Sea Chest and The Fog Catcher Inn is very romantic and cozy.

A few other vineyard suggestions -- Sanford (near Buellton), Gainey, Foley, Byron, Cambria (Santa Ynez/Santa Maria), Foxen Wine trail, Justin, Dark Star, Bonny Doon (Paso Robles), Hahn (Monterey).

jaredleon

Thank you all for your help. we will be staying for about 5 days i believe. i think we will fly in and out of SFO and drive down, maybe spending a night or 2 somewhere on the way down. Any suggestions on specific places to stay would be great. thanks again.

LDLee

You should consider flying to San Luis Obispo. Checked prices last week after my wife and I started talking about a desire/need to return to Cambria, and was surprised it cost about the same as flying to LAX or SFO. (American Eagle provides the service from LAX, Layover was relatively short, about 1 hour). If you add cost of gas and time in the car, flying to San Luis Obispo was much less expensive.

Flying to San Luis Obispo gives you an extra half day each way. It is only a half hour from Cambria. I too will vouch for the Fog Catcher Inn.

Based out of Cambria, Morro Bay or San Luis Obispo, it is easy enough to schedule a day trip to Carmel on CA1 along Big Sur. The drive is truly fantastic and worth the time.

Also, by flying to San Luis Obispo, you won't have to put up with people trying to convince you to fly into San Jose (recently voted one of the five worst airports in the U.S.) and drive the less interesting route.

moneygirl

The advice to fly into San Luis Obispo is great, only other that could possibly be better, is if you were going to spend most of you time in the Santa Ynez area, you could fly into and out of Santa Barbara. No matter how you look at this, San Jose is NOT going to be convenient! So here's one idea: fly into SLo and spend the night in Cambria, see Hearst Castle and Cambria and spend the next day meandering down the coast through Morro Bay, Cayucous and San Luis Obispo. Spend a night in SLO and the third day, head down to Santa Ynez (go to santaynezinn.com or the ballardinn.com) and wine taste for a day or two. Fly home from Santa Barbara or SLO, your pick. Decide the towns you want to focus on and I'm sure you'll getlots more ideas.

rjw_lgb_ca

Some numbers to think about: The drive to/from either SJC or LAX will be 3 1/2 to 4 hours (I'm sorry, but even a pretty drive of that length makes me irritable). Even from San Luis Obispo, the drive is some two hours. It costs only a bit more to fly into Santa Barbara (SBA) itself (one stop-- most carriers offer regional jet service), and then it's not very far to Santa Ynez. I think that will make for a far more relaxing visit.

jaredleon

ok...to end the controversy i am flying in from NY, however, my wife has to do some business on the saturday we get there in either LA or SF. that will determain which airport we fly into and also we will be away from the airport so i thought just to continue the drive to the central coast. yes 3-4 hours is long, longer than i would like, but maybe, just maybe, we will take a day or so to get there and either stop in monterey or santa barbara proper. how does that sound?

L

Please do not miss the West face of the Santa Lucia Mountains for some wonderful Pinot Noir's. It is just west of Paso Robles. For some better ideas, go to www.ranchocellars.com. It is a store I always go to when I want an impressive bottle of wine. The staff is very knowledgeble, and they have a wonderful map of the region I am talking about. They are located in Carmel, at the mouth of the valley.

hlphillips2

Back to the subject

IMO the drive isn't that bad - maybe 4-5 hours. I'd recommend making a list from suggestions on this board of what you want to see then pull out a map. Spend a lot of time going up the coast seeing everything, then you can spend half a day driving back down quickly.
We spent most nights at the Santa Ynez Marriot in Buelton. It wasn't bad -- we used points for a few nights which made it worthwhile. But I would defer to other options on this board for better lodging possibilities. Our trip was a week, but we spent the last two days in LA so we had about the same amount of time. We drove north from LA into Santa Barbara (should have stayed overnight there). Then drove to Lompoc to see the mission (worthwhile to see, but the wineries in that area weren't great) and my husband's old haunts. That afternoon we visited a few more wineries around Los Olivos. My husband also arranged a horseback ride mid-week which was a blast. We also took the rental car onto Pismo Beach one afternoon, and if you like clam chowder that's the spot to get it.

We stayed at the Madonna Inn right outside of San Louis Obispo for one night (would recommend the quirkiness for one night only!), then drove to Hearst Castle early the next morning, had two tours (the basic tour & the "upstairs" tour -- very worthwhile), and finished by driving back down the coast about an hour north of LA, with a stop for a late lunch in Cambria. We spent the last night outside of LA at the Cliff House Inn at Mussel Shoals (RIGHT off of the Interstate, very easy to find -- fabulous food, and you may be able to find a weeknight deal that includes a free dinner with your stay).