Consilience Wines and Kenneth Volk Wine Tasting

Since we had a wine club shipment available for pickup at Consilience Wines in Los Olivos, we had an excellent reason to get out and enjoy yet another beautiful day on the Central Coast. It turns out that we happened to visit two great wineries with very similar production styles.

Consilience was officially founded in 1999 by four close friends: Brett and Monica Escalera and Tom and Jodie Daughters. Brett serves as the winemaker for Consilence and he's well qualified since he earned his "chops" as head winemaker at Fess Parker Winery for several years. Brett's past experience enabled him to now concentrate on very small hand-crafted production runs at Consilience. These small runs allow Consilience to produce "carefully nurtured, bold, and exciting wines that the common man can actually afford". Who can argue with that?

We feel Consilience produces some of the most consistent and highest-quality wines in Santa Barbara County. We're big fans of the Syrah varietal and Consilience always satisfies our quest for a full bodied, multi-layered Syrah. In fact, the current wine shipment features their 2004 Syrah, Hampton Family Vineyard and their 2004 Syrah, Falcone Vineyard.

Today's tastings included a couple whites and several reds. The reds are our favorites but the whites are of excellent quality also. Consilience's Roussanne's and Viognier's are always a pleasure to taste. We went home with a 2005 Viognier, Santa Barbara County; an 04 Syrah Camp 4; an 04 Syrah, Santa Barbara County and an 02 Zinfandel Port which we're eager to pair with some dark chocalate and/or a fine cigar. Decadence at it's best.



Los Olivos is at the southern terminus of Foxen Canyon Road and Kenneth Volk Vineyards lies 21.5 miles away at the northern end of the Foxen Canyon Wine Trail. We enjoyed the drive (watch out for bikes) and captured a few of the rustic sights on this gorgeous day.

Kenneth Volk founded Wild Horse Winery and Vineyards in Paso Robles in 1981. In 2003, he sold Wild Horse to a major corporation and has now founded Kenneth Volk Vineyards at the eastern end of the Santa Maria valley. We're glad he's here! Ken states that his previous experience has allowed him to reinvent himself in the wine industry and concentrate on his family namesake brand: producing "smaller, better and slower" (sound familiar?). His efforts have already paid off with his Kenneth Volk 2005 Chardonnay, Santa Maria Cuvee winning the best-of-show award for whites at the 2007 Santa Barbara County Fair.

A very reasonable $5 tasting fee covered the tasting of 3 whites and 4 reds plus a couple extra reds thrown in for good measure. Our favorites today were the 2004 Chardonnay, Bien Nacido Vineyard; the 2005 Pinot Blanc, Bien Nacido Vineyard; the 2005 Negrette, Caleri Vineyard; the 2004 Claret; and the 2004 Merlot, El Pomar Junction.

The 2005 Pinot Blanc has aromas of caramel, vanilla, butter and toasted oak. We found it paired perfectly with our lunch of fruit and cheese at the picnic table conveniently situated in a flower garden at the front entrance to the winery.

Needless to say, we're looking forward to future vintages from Kenneth Volk Vineyards.

Pismo Beach Classic Car Show

Once a year, on Father's Day weekend, the town of Pismo Beach is "invaded" by classic cars, car owners and about 100,000 admiring fans.


The beach-side community closes down several streets to make room for the huge assortment of classic cars. The 3-day event features a "cruise night", hundreds of car-related vendors and food booths and this year, the event even drew the Budweiser Clydesdale horses.


Even the world-famous Pismo pier is used to exhibit several of the cars.


This year's Pismo Beach Classic Car Show had over 1200 classic car entries.



Each automobile is a labor of love by the car-owner and the efforts are well appreciated by every one in attendance.


Make sure to mark your calendar now for next year's event!