Besides being roughly halfway between San Jose and Los Angeles, San Louis Obispo (SLO) is close to Hearst Castle, and even more importantly home to Bubble Gum Alley. I was dad of the year for taking my kids to this locally notorious alley-way that is home to literally thousands of pieces of chewed bubble gum stuck to the brick walls of this alley. See the picture below from 2010 when Zach was 10 and Matt was 6 - and yes much to my wife's dismay, I let the boys touch a few pieces of the petrified bubble gum.
I remembered this when I selected Wolff Vineyard's Petite Syrah for my wine tonight. Wolff is a very small organic winery located just outside of SLO. My wife and I are members mainly because we think it is some of the best cheap wine around. I think the average price is around $20 a bottle and they make really good Petite Syrah and other red blends. And not too many wineries make Petite Syrah today (the smaller grape compared to its larger sibling the Syrah). Our general love for this somewhat obscure varietal started in the Russian River area at another rather small winery called Foppiano which bottles this grape. The lady running the tasting room at that winery back in the mid-90's was famous for pouring a lot of wine and drinking with you. We always made sure that was our last stop during a day of tasting because we would be pretty shit-faced (my adjective - my wife would say tipsy) after visiting with her for about an hour tasting their various wines. Good times with good wine. Cheers!