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Why this town and not the other ones
Los Olivos is the rare wine town where the wineries came to you. Seventeen tasting rooms sit inside a third of a mile of the flagpole at Grand and Alamo Pintado. You park once on Friday afternoon and you do not touch the car again until Sunday.
That is the whole pitch. No designated driver, no van, no one doing math at 4pm about who had what. For a group of six that is the difference between a trip and a logistics project.
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The Grand Avenue block
Work it in order and you will not backtrack. Carhartt Family Wines is a small room with a garden patio behind it, which makes it the easiest first stop of the day. Saarloos and Sons is a few doors up and pairs their wines with cupcakes, which sounds like a gimmick until you are four flights in and grateful for it. Keith Saarloos runs a vineyard tour on Saturdays at no charge.
Refugio Ranch Vineyards and St. Avalo Wines sit on the same stretch, and Waylan Wine Co. shares an address with St. Avalo, so that is three stops without crossing a street.
03
When the group splits up
It happens around three in the afternoon. Half the group wants to taste properly and half wants to sit outside and stop moving.
Epiphany Cellars solves the second half. There is a real garden, the Rhône wines are good, and they do not require a reservation, which matters once your plans have stopped being plans. Dragonette Cellars is a minute from the flagpole and takes groups. Tercero Wines, Story of Soil, and Liquid Farm are all inside two blocks for everyone else.
04
Book these for the morning
Brewer-Clifton and Diatom both require reservations and both pour Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Put them in the first slot, while the group is still sharp enough to notice.
Coquelicot Estate Vineyard anchors the south end of Grand and pours the longest varietal list in town, ten of them, if the group cannot agree on anything. Stolpman Vineyards takes dogs, in case one came along. Blair Fox Cellars is a block east on Alamo Pintado.
Seventeen rooms, one parking spot, no argument about who drives.
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