We screwed up – had a great time!
As we drove south on Hwy 101 toward the Salinas Valley, and more importantly the Santa Lucia Highlands vineyards of Monterey County, Katya and I pledged to avoid tasting rooms. We wanted to focus on the photography for our upcoming Discover California Wine Regions videos and the River Road Wine Trail was the last shoot needed.
We have the same problem every region we shoot. We start off dedicated to photography only and somehow stray off into tasting at some point. We were already running a bit late and didn’t expect to arrive in the region until around noon. With short days now we only had a few hours to shoot with sunlight.
We started on the south end near Arroyo Seco Road and did a little shoot at Paraiso Springs Vineyards‘ tasting room on the Santa Lucia Highlands “bench”. We were good kids and shot and ran away.
The best views of the area are from Hahn’s tasting room high up on the side of the Salinas Valley. As we drove up the mile long scenic drive we planned our attack. Katya would shoot from the vineyard and frame the tasting room against the steep mountain. I would shoot video of the picnic area, deck, and the incredible view across the Salinas Valley.
The shoot went perfect. We’re getting good at this. Then I wandered into the tasting room to say “Hi”. As always the staff was friendly and conversant. Soon we were talked into trying a couple of special wines. We couldn’t escape. I decided to keep tasting and develop a blog about their wines and warm tasting environment (to come).
We left the Hahn tasting room with less than an hour of sun left and managed a few more shots here and there. We have enough but had to push hard to get them.
As always we kick ourselves for a decadent lack of self-discipline and control in tasting rooms all over California. We can’t seem to stop wine questing when we should be working on other aspects of Wine Questers. Then again, when we discover adventures in wine country you probably want to know about them and also be tempted to linger.
- jim
Tags: Hahn, Monterey County, River Road Wine Trail