I recently went by Edward Sellers, which is right off the park downtown, and it was a totally odd wine tasting situation. It's next to a Subway! You know, the fast-food sandwich chain?...Weird right?! Anyway, my excursion to Edward Sellers was my first foray into the downtown-tasting room phenomenon in Paso. There are over a dozen tasting rooms in Paso's city center around the park but it never occurs to me to check any of them out. I'm suspicious the circumstances that brought me to the Edward Sellers are somewhat representative of much of their clientele...I was meeting a friend for dinner at a downtown restaurant and of course the person I was meeting was running 20 minutes late. For fear of looking like a loser sitting alone at a table on a Friday night I took a little stroll and found myself outside of Edward Sellers!
Once I actually made it through the front doors I was pleasantly surprised by the decor and general ambiance. Whoever decorated did a very nice job plus there's a comfy chair, which I wish was more common in tasting rooms. As for the wines, again I found myself pleasantly s
urprised. The Edward Sellers tasting list is longer than I expected but not as crazy-huge as many others I've seen. The woman behind the bar was super-nice but it was still odd to just walk into a downtown-store front. The pourer did a great job in explaining the Edward Sellers story and the wines were quite tasty but after I left it doesn't stick out in my mind. I think not having the wine-tasting experience of driving along curvy roads and seeing the vines along the way makes it hard to think of this tasting room as a wine-tasting experience. It's more like a random bonus of strolling downtown for an hour.As more tasting rooms open up downtown I will be very curious to see how business goes for them all. Are they catering to a post-all-day-tasting, pre-dinner, drunk crowd? Not that I don't love drunk, rich, LA people, but seriously, who will visit these tasting rooms? I'll also be curious to see if I can ever bridge that wine country gap myself. I actually quite enjoyed my stop at Edward Sellers and I hope many of you do the same. And despite my vehement pessimism, I do wish all those who dare pour downtown all the best.
**Pictures from Edward Sellers website (www.edwardsellers.com)
2 comments:
I have been wanting to plan a day of "downtown" tasting. There are now something like 9 tasting rooms downtown. Next time you are at Goshi's, give Anglim and D'Anbino a try. (LOVED D'Anbino). The tasting room is nice and kitchy- the wine's so-so.
I totally agree...a day of downtown tasting is definitely in order. And I've tried Anglim...it was actually a lovely experience overall and I took home a viognier.
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