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This past weekend we were honored to be interviewed by Boyd Matson on his National Geographic Weekend radio program. You can listen to our eight minute interview here:

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We’d been told to expect to spend most of the interview talking about National Parks so we mentally revisited the more than 100 National Parks we’ve been to since our Journey began in in 2006. This was a fun bit of prep during which we came up with a kind of National Parks Hit List. In the end, our interview with Boyd focused almost entirely on the whys and hows of our Trans-Americas Journey and not on National Parks, but we don’t want our list to go to waste so here it is. Need more reasons to go visit a National Park this summer? August 15 and 16 will be the last of this summer’s Fee Free Weekends during which most National Parks waive their entrance fees.

Park It!

Most Unique: Denali National Park & Preseve in Alaska because the wildlife here is still wild (and everywhere) which means you really feel like part of the food chain, not just another ho-hum human visitor. Also, this is the only National Park we know of where you’re allowed to hike anywhere you want, not simply on established trails.

Most Varied: Lassen Volcanic National Park in California because it delivers bears, volcanoes and geysers in one package.

Biggest Surprise: Dry Tortugas National Park in Florida because even the two hour ferry ride from Key West out to the park is full of marine life and because the snorkeling and beach camping once you get to this park, which protects the third largest barrier reef system in the world, is some of the most beautiful, accessible and low key in the country.

Most Underrated: Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park in California because the redwood groves rival (and even outdo) Yosemite’s and because we saw seven bears in one day here.m

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Friday morning we visited Alta Colina’s beautiful vineyards where we were treated to the first signs of veraison, the change in color of the grapes berries. The Mourvedre blocks were well on their way and the Syrah was just beginning. It was too beautiful to keep to ourselves.

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It was a Twitter message that did it. 140 little characters about a crazy big sale on delicious 2005 Viognier and Roussanne that worked out to less than $100 a case. Huh?

We read that post at 3:45 and still managed to get to the Clautiere Vineyard tasting room (a 30 minute drive away) before it closed at 5. When we walked in we told the woman behind the bar that we were there because we’d just read a Tweet about the blow-out sale on cases of white. Her reaction “No way!”

Way.

Tweeting about an impromptu sale like this is a prime example of one of the many ways Twitter should be used by wineries for immediate results (ie, sales), though alarmingly few Paso Robles wineries are doing it. Yet.

But Clautiere has always been a leader, not a follower right down to its motto which is “a winery like no other.” Clautiere’s tasting room lives up to that motto with an electric palette, a penchant for harlequin prints and epic portraits. The owners themselves describe it as “Edward Scissor Hands meeting the Mad Hatter at the Moulin Rouge” and who are we to argue? Actually, the cartoony rendering of the tasting room on the winery’s web site is not that far off from the reality…

One of two lively tasting bars at Clautiere Vineyard.

Oh, did we mention the basket of hats and piles of wigs for customers to try on and the shed out the back that’s full of even more costumes and fun house mirrors?

Which one goes with Mouvedre?

This wonderful wackiness is the brainchild of Clautiere owners Claudine and Terry (Clautiere, get it?) who between them have previous careers as a fashion designer, a welder, a landscape designer and a restauranteur. Now they make wine that’s fragrant and friendly and surprisingly serious given the eclectic surroundings.

We also love their latest brainstorm: a spin-off label called Two Cocky Sisters that’s meant to be an “economy buster” with a price tag of $11 per bottle. Essentially, they blend all of the leftovers together into deliciousness.

The painting that inspired the "economy buster" Two Cocky Sisters label at Clautiere Vineyard. Looks like they could bust more than just the economy...

Speaking of blending, Clautiere does a full complement of single varietal wines, but they’re not afraid to throw in the kitchen sink. Their 2002 Grand Cru ($35), for example, is a happy mix of Syrah, Cuonoise, Grenache, Mouvedre, Cabernet Sauvignon and Viognier. Just drink it. It’s a pleasant surprise to find many of Clautiere’s wines under 15% alcohol as well.

You’ll want to linger at the tasting room bar, but pull yourself away long enough to check out the Clautiere version on a winery gift shop. No dopey wine glass charms or bottle stoppers in the shape of dolphins. Nope. The Clautiere shop sells killer t-shirts that say things like A Day Without Wine is a Drag printed over a Warhol-esque photo of a male fan of the vineyard in a florescent wig.

Tasting room hours: Daily 12-5

Free or fee?: $5 (free for club members)

Bar snacks: None, but it was closing time when we arrived

Soundtrack: None, but it was closing time when we arrived

Bottle prices: $20-$69 (mostly in the $30s)

Wine club: Yes and accepting new members who can opt to receive two shipments of six or 12 bottles each every year and enjoy wine club member savings of 20%

What we walked out with: A mixed case of 2005 Viognier and 2005 Rousanne for 96 bucks people

More information: Nothing quite conveys the essence of this unique and tasty winery like an actual trip to the tasting room. Make your visit a doozy by signing up for Clautiere’s Cops Criminials Kimonos event on August 18 (free for cub memeber, $30 for the rest of us) and be treated to the full Clautiere effect with costumes (come dressed as your favorite cop, criminal or kimono wearer) plus food and great wine and probably wigs. Lots and lots of wigs.

More info: Winery profile from the Paso Robles Country Wine Alliance

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Sharing. Sharing a bottle. Sharing advice. Even sharing wine making facilities and space. Sharing is a huge part of how wine gets made and why it’s so enjoyable to drink. Heck,  Alta Colina wouldn’t even have a tasting room except for the generous and sharing nature of their neighbors at Villacana (awesome women’s t-shirts in their tasting room, btw). Earlier this year Villacana owners Alex and Monica offered to let first-time winemaker Bob Tillman use their equipment and rented them an unused portion of their building so they could turn it into a cozy upstairs tasting room.

This is where we met Meg after a short drive down Adelaida Road, one of the most scenic winery-laden byways in the Paso Robles area. Her family’s brand new winery just finished its first bottling (2007) from their 31 acre vineyard of Rhone varietals, some of which were bought by the venerated Justin Vineyards & Winery–a good sign in and of itself.

No doubt these are incredibly young vines (just three years old). However, the extremely refreshing and rounded white blend of Marsanne, Rousanne and Greanche Blanc, the pleasingly light GSM, two radically different Syrahs (one from grapes blended from different blocks of vines in the vineyard and one made exclusively from grapes grown in the mysteriously superior block #9) plus a pleasantly metallic/tobacco-laced Petite Syrah don’t taste like young’ins. (The winery’s viognier is still fermenting in the barrels but we can’t wait to taste that too.)

Prices are on the high end ($28-$48), which Meg explained as a conscious decision by her father who believes that the wine is and will continue to be worth the price (particularly the 2008 Claudia Cuvee and the 2007 Old 900 Syrah, if you ask us) so rather than start out with lower first-bottling prices then have to raise them on people Mr. Tillman wanted to set the bar where he feels it belongs from the outset.

Tasting room hours: Thursday – Sunday 11AM – 5PM.

Free or fee?: $5 (free for wine club members)

Bar snacks: Wrapped morsels of Dove dark chocolate on the tasting room bar

Soundtrack: Billy Holiday

Bottle prices: $28-$48

Wine club: Yes and accepting new members. Alta Colina’s club offers a full 20% discount to members and only members of their wine club can buy the wonderfully earthy and seductive 2007 Old 900 Syrah (from the magical vineyard #9) and the already sturdy 2007 Ann’s Block Petite Syrah.

What we walked out with: A bottle of the super-refreshing and so-drinkable 2008 Claudia Cuvee white blend (for a limited time you can get a case of this stuff for $240!) and a bottle of 2007 Old 900 Syrah.

More info: Winery profile from the Paso Robles Country Wine Alliance    

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The name is awesome: Wine for Water. The idea is pretty awesome too–make money serving world-class wines made in Paso Robles, California (or at least made from grapes grown in Paso Robles) in a chic new downtown wine bar (rather dryly named the Paso Wine Center) and give ALL profits to Wine for Water. The charity then turns that wine money into water by using it to drill wells and install tough-as-nails pumps that supply fresh, clean water to some of the most water-starved people on the planet.

The whole shebang is the brain child of an alarmingly tall man named Ryan Boersma who’s built like a rock climber (because that’s what he is) and has the heart of a true millennial philanthropist. See a problem. Feel a problem. Fix a problem.

Ryan saw the clean water problem (one billion people don’t have clean drinking water right this very minute) during trips to India, Kazakhstan and Guatemala. As bad at the water situation is there, its even worse in Ethiopia so that’s where Ryan started solving the problem, using his own money to install the first Wine for Water well in early 2009 (each well costs about $5,000, will serve the entire community and will last for years).

While Wine for Water is certainly not the only charity focused on the issue of access to clean water, it is one of the most innovative for a number of reasons that add up to more water and less waste. First, Ryan realized that he can raise more money by opening the Paso Wine Center as a business, then donating all profits to Wine for Water vs. just trying to get direct tax-deductible donations to Wine for Water (which are still very much appreciated, by the way). Second, Ryan maximizes the effectiveness of every penny by partnering with an existing clean water action group in Africa which gives him access to pricey infrastructure stuff like vehicles so he doesn’t have to buy them himself. Third, all profits after operating costs (like staff salaries and rent for the Paso Wine Center) go straight to Wine for Water. ALL PROFITS.

The Paso Wine Center has been open just six weeks and is slowly but surely attracting customers with its loft-like feel, inviting leather chairs and couches and bank of fancy enomatic wine-dispensing machines made in Italy that look like something out of The Jetsons’ kitchen. The enomatic system sucks the air out of an opened wine bottle, thus extending it’s shelf life–up to three weeks–after it’s opened. Ryan’s enomatic center dispenses nearly 50 different wines (about a hundred more are available by the bottle), with a refreshing focus on young labels and young/upstarty wine makers (one is called Chronic).

Ryan’s goal, beyond keeping those leather sofas full and that enomatic system pumping, is for Wine for Water to install more than 100 wells in Ethiopia over the next 18 months, so start sipping! If you’re in Paso Robles on August 22 (and you should be because that’s the same weekend the annual and aweseme Olive Festival plus free concerts in the park and the city’s ), stop by the Downtown Park Ballroom (1232 Park Street) from 4-6:30 for a special fund raiser for Wine for Water. Forty (tax deductible) bucks gets you in the door where you’ll enjoy tastings of area wines from Booker, Saxum, L’Aventure, Torrin, Jada, Terry Hoage and others plus hors’devours and a really warm and fuzzy feeling inside (from helping such a worthy cause, not from the wine).