Wow is all I could think and say when I walked into the old barn that now serves at the Cellar Door (yes, it should be capitalised according to rule 17.9 of the oenophile's handbook) for Paramoor winery.
The old barn, complete with stabling boxes, working blacksmith's forge and generous lashings of now-archaic once-indispensable rural paraphernalia, is decked out with tables and chairs as if you had been invited into someone's rustic tearooms or sitting room, and Bill conducts the free tastings in person, at your table. I challenge you to name another such table service wine tasting at a cellar door.
This intimate approach allows you to hear the full story of the wines, including the naming convention of some (after his mother, his wife etc), and the locations of the vineyards from whence the berries were sourced. This is undoubtedly the best wine tasting I have ever had.
Happily, Paramoor make fantastic wines, and Bill will let you try them all during his tasting flight. I mentioned that I liked heavy cold weather Shiraz, and some minutes later bill presented a bottle for tasting that he thought "may be ready, so your opinion would be good if this is your thing." We agreed it was ready, and he noted improvement from his tasting a year or so previous. And will only improve, so I managed to secures bottle or two of an as yet unreleased wine :) If that doesn't fill you with warm fuzzies, nothing will.
Pizza in the wood fired oven many days, and cheese platters etc available all the time.
Like MacArthur, I shall return. Unlike MacArthur, I will not destroy Manila. read more
