Today was the Atascadero Downtown Association’s Spring into Atascadero Stroll celebration. It was actually supposed to be the Sweetheart Stroll and was to be held in February around Valentine’s Day, but it rained that weekend, and the event was cancelled.

Mom and I walked up to check out the local businesses (and shake our heads sadly at the numerous empty storefronts), taste some wines, sample some delicious finger foods, view some great art, and generally have a lovely afternoon outdoors.

Our first stop was the Eberle Winery station where we sampled a very nice Chardonnay. I’m sure we’ve had it before, as Eberle is usually at all these types of events. There were, however only a couple other familiar names (Martin -Weyrich and Castoro Cellers), the other wineries were all new (well, new to us), so it was really fun to try some new wines.

At the Christian Lazo station we tried the Rose of Zinfandel, a blush that wasn’t as sweet and fruity as some blushes can be. (Which is a good thing, as I don’t really care for a wine that’s too fruity or too sweet.) It was a bit tart and really delicious.

Across from Christian Lazo was a table decked out with scrumptious delights from Out of the Box catering. The guacamole? OMG. The best I’ve ever had! They also had bruchettas (seen above) and little wraps. Yum!

The next wine station we visited was an old favourite: Castoro Cellers. We tasted their White Zin (yummy, but a bit sweet for me), and I tried their Chardonnay (one of my all-time fave wines!), and a brand new favourite: the Viogner! It was wonderful! Light, refreshing, not too tart, not too sweet. It was perfect! I’ve decided to pick up a few bottles to have this summer. It’s the perfect summer sipping wine.

Next was another new discovery: Kelsey See Canyon Vineyards’ Apple Chardonnay. It’s another light, refreshing, perfect-for-sipping-on-a-hot-summer-afternoon wine. You can really smell the See Canyon apples, but it doesn’t taste apple-y. It’s just nice and smooth!

Another new winery we discovered is tangent. It’s actually a sister winery to Baileyana (who’s Chardonnay I quite enjoy), and they had a delicious Savignon Blanc! Just down the street from them was some Effen Good Wines, the best of which was the Sunset Pink – a light a lovely blush; a bit fruity but really fun. Unfortunetly the guy was too quick with the bottle, so I didn’t get a picture of the label.

Finally we headed back to the Carlton Hotel to try some Martin-Weyrich wines. I’ve had the Chardonnay and Cabernet at many an AMBerland function, so it was kinda fun to try something new. Their Pinot Grigio was really good – light and crisp and tasty. I’ve seen it in the stores before, and wonder now why I never tried it before.

We ended up staying almost the entire three hours tasting several new wines, noshing on fresh veggies, chocolates, cookies, mini quiches, gourmet pizza slices, bruchettas and carrot cake, and chatting with winemakers and artists and merchants. We toured the new super fancy-pants Spa next to the Carlton Hotel and decided that perhaps a spa day is in our future, and discovered a new skin treatment place right next door to my dentist. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, lots of people were out, everyone was in a good mood (of course that could’ve been because of all the wine!), and it was just a really, really great day!