Every year, Paso Robles hosts the Hospice du Rhone wine event. http://www.hospicedurhone.org/. Winemakers from all over the world come to showcase their Rhone-style wines. There are wines from France, Spain, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and all over the US, including Washington, Oregon, and California. There were restaurants and other food vendors sharing their wares, all of our favorite stuff under one roof!
Video 1 of 3:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txy-PcmSC_E[/youtube]
Our approach was to try wines that we wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to try. In other words, we avoided the Paso Robles wines….well, we broke down a couple of times and had a wee taste of some of our favorites, but the focus was on “other” wine! They even had a Twitter wall up so that you could see people (like us) tweeting about the event in real time! Very cool…
Video 2 of 3:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ7KCzm-RNU[/youtube]
The event was a truly great experience; kind of like Disneyland for adults! With so many wineries from so many areas, it’s a good idea to go in with a little bit of a game plan. But then again, a little bit of spontaneity is a good thing! Cheers!
Video 3 of 3:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWkz0GNjCgM[/youtube]
Good video I love the 3 parts, I can’t get enough of you guys. So glad you guys were responsible drinkers, that is a great idea to just have a little taste of some wine and throw the rest out other wise it would be hard walking out of there (like the flip-flop incident) lol. If you had the list of wineries and wrote down which ones you tried, and where to buy them that would be awesome. You know me I like to try almost every wine that you guys taste (best for me is C&B). Love you guys, Cheers!
Hi Beverly…yeah, we’re working on our wine dumping habits. It’s hard to remember to dump out wine sometimes, especially when it’s really good and you just want to keep sipping! RE a list of the wines that we’ve tried…that might be a little hard to pin down, as often we try different things and the winery tasting lists change. If you look on the right column of the blog, you’ll see that we try to categorize each wine/winery with certain qualities. That might help…and we always include the link to the winery in the blog so you can get to their site and check them out.
Thanks for the love…we love you, too!!!!
Annie and Matt,
You should come by OHV tastingroom Friday and Saturday of Wine Fest to do your blog video. I will have lots of ice cold water, air conditioning and great white wines. I have a front patio and a private room. It will be a great place to watch the happenings!
Come check it out,
Jen
Hi Jen! Thanks for the great idea…we’ll try to get by there to watch the craziness!!! Cheers!
Great job of reporting guys! I have never been to Hospice du Rhone and have always wondered what it was like. I got a good idea of what to expect when I do go now. Thanks for that. Can’t wait to catch up with you 2 wine dogs. Love you!!
Awesome Gina! Glad you liked it…we had a great time and would love to hang out soon!
Glad you guys had a great time, sorry we missed you, was doing the Press Speed Tasting first. Some advice hard learned that finally transformed my ability to maximize events like this – SPIT CUP! A dump bucket isn’t enough, after just 6-8 oz of alcohol, your sensory eval abilities are changed.
Look forward to your next reviews, cheers,
(Sonoma) William
http://www.simplehedonisms.com
Hey William!!! Sorry we missed you, too! It was an awesome event, and we worked really hard at pouring some wines out. It’s a hard thing to do when you’re tasting such great wines, though. We’ll graduate to a spit cup one of these days…that takes practice, too! Love your blog, man! CHEERS!!!!