When meeting new people, they often ask me what I like to do for fun. I usually ramble on about my love for photography, my secret romance with jumping into cold water and swimming 2500 yards or how much I miss doing yoga regulary. I might confess to them that I am totally addicted to websites like Apartment Therapy or Young House Love, aka house porn. I will probably definitely tell them about my love for eating organic and how I really think Gluten Free living is super cool. Those are just some of my favorite things.

A few weeks ago, a friend asked John and I what we like to do together. Without much hesitation in answering his question, wine tasting has to be one of our favorite things to do together. So when it was my year to plan our anniversary trip, I didn’t have too hard of a time dreaming up a three day get away to Paso Robles. Having went here earlier in 2010, we wanted to go back to some of our favorite wineries, like Castoro Cellars just so we could buy some of their fabulous Zinfusion again. But this trip, we wanted to go to the wineries that were more off the beaten track, the ones that get less visitors and give the best costumer service experience.

We went to probably 10 wineries, but the best places were where we bought bottles of delicious wine. So our top five vineyards were….drum roll please…Castoro Cellars, Wild Horse, Vina Robles, Pomar Junction and Rotta. We usually buy white wines on our trips, but this time, we had so many outstanding reds, that we just couldn’t resist.

I found myself kind of obsessed with the lonely oak trees that speckled the landscape. Gorgeous! I love the clean lines that just seem to go on forever. And for a pop of color, a gorgeous sunset to end the set of Central California Wine Country.