Wine Adventures with the $2 Wine Connoisseurs: The Cellar in San Clemente

Once a year we head down to San Clemente for a fun getaway.  We love sitting on the balcony enjoying a glass of wine and pizza from the pizza place right next to the pier.  San Clemente is a really cool little Beach community with a great main street for shopping and dining.   This year we decided to hit up a fun little Wine Bar as well and now have an even better reason to look forward to our yearly trip.

The Cellar is  located on Avenida Del Mar, the main street that leads down to the beach.  It was a fun little Wine and Cheese bar that had great wines and FANTASTIC food.  I would advise getting there a little early because the place was packed when we arrived on a Friday night. We settled in at a spot at the piano listening to the entertainment and enjoying a Wine Flight and some really good appetizers.  We may have a new tradition for our yearly trip.

Whipped Goat Cheese Crostini's topped with preserves and grapes YUM!! 

The Cellar offers up a swanky chic kind of vibe. The live piano entertainment is a big plus. 

The food is excellent and overall this place is exactly what we enjoy most about a good wine bar. 

Just wish it was a little closer to home so we could visit more often!!

This was painted on the wall in the womens restroom!! 

If you get a chance to visit, let us know what you thought of your experience. We'd love to hear from you!! 

And for your final photo here is one last look at just a partial assortment of what the Cheese shop has to offer.  

Check out their website below

http://thecellarsite.com/

"One of those nights with my Witchy Women"

It was just that kind of night.........

It has been so hot this summer in the house that we have truly embraced the idea of extending our house outdoors.....Sitting out on the patio listening to music and enjoying the fresh air.   Drinking wine by candlelight and turning our backyard into the largest room in the house.....And last Friday was just One of Those nights.....We pulled down the movie screen and hooked up the DVD player and the sound system and enjoyed a backyard concert.

We had an Eagles Concert in our backyard for under $12.

It was an amazing night of good music and an enjoyable wine experience.... Some $2 Potato tacos from a local Taco place and some Charles Shaw....

Backyard movie nights are a great way of having fun at a low cost.  we have been listening to so much good music this summer we figured why not bring the Eagles to the backyard on more than just a CD....So we put in our Eagles Farewell Tour DVD and enjoyed some wine and some amazing music....It was the closest thing to actually being at an Eagles concert.

 On a budget you can create one of those Bachelor/Bachelorette TV dream dates with your loved one in your own backyard.

(Henley drumming away on the Eagles version of his hit The  Boys of Summer)

We plan to have many more concerts in the future....Sting is at the top of our Concert wish list ---since we have found Sting to be quite possibly be THE BEST music for sipping wine by candlelight....

One Of Our Favorite Wines: A Toad With No Pants!

This week we revisited one of our Favorite wines.  

 The label is great~ A Toad in a coat with  a cane holding up a glass of wine. Apparently he enjoys his wine so much that he forgot to put on his pants!!  

Toad's Hollow Chardonnay is a delightful Chardonnay.  

It is reasonably priced at 12.99 a bottle and quite tasty. It is clean, crisp and full of flavor offering up hints of Mango and Melon. We hadn't had it in awhile as we have been trying a bunch of different wines~ but it was a nice evening of bringing back one of our favorites as we relaxed in our backyard oasis with some really good grilled Brie and Blue Cheese Turkey Panini's.

The Toad with no pants really knows how to make a good Chardonnay.  We will have to visit his hollow when we make our journey up North to the Russian River Valley. 

Here is their Website.....Check it out.

http://www.toadhollow.com/

Our Facebook page is here https://www.facebook.com/2dollarwineconnoisseur

Sort this out Cellars: Vegas/Pinup Wine Bar in Solvang

While on our Solvang Wine Trip.....which was an absolute blast another fun place we stumbled across was Sort This Out Cellars.

Something you definitely wouldn't expect in old Solvang (the land of bakeries and wooden shoes).  Sort This Out Cellars is a fun little Pin-up themed...Wine Bar......The wine labels are fun and the wine was enjoyable as well.

We really liked this Cabernet that was a special label relating to the big Rockabilly weekend that happens in Vegas every year......

and we also liked the 

2009 Suited Chardonnay Gina Georgette

OM My Gosh Grenache!

They even had an Elvira themed wines

With the movie Swingers playing on the TV and a swanky back area hangout for their VIP's 

Pinup art covers the walls ....It had a really cool vibe.

 The day that we were there they ended up having a live musician on schedule to play later that evening so we headed back to hang out and enjoy the atmosphere some more. Unfortunately we don't have any pics of that but here is a link to their webpage....
Make sure to check it out the next time you are in Solvang.

http://www.sortthisoutcellars.com/

Our Facebook page is here https://www.facebook.com/2dollarwineconnoisseur

Ode to a Wine named Hanna....Our Favorite Wine of the moment.

My husband has a mistress........

Her name is Hanna.......

She comes from the Russian River Valley........

She is a blond with nice legs.......

and has quite a nose on her.......

We meet her in a little wine bar in Solvang......

And he has been madly in love with her every since.

But Seriously,  Our current favorite wine is definitely Hanna Chardonnay 

Here is their Website......We can't wait to visit this winery some day

http://www.hannawinery.com/

Not all Tiki's drink rum..... Kalyra Wines Santa Barbara Wine Tasting

When we found out that we were heading to Santa Barbara for the weekend...We rushed online to see what there was to do. One of the first things that caught our attention was something called the Urban Wine Trail  (which you can find at the link below.

http://www.urbanwinetrailsb.com/

Perfect!!!!  A walking trail in downtown Santa Barbara....where one can visit a bunch of different wine tasting places all within walking distance.  We checked out some of the Wine places online and immediately stumbled upon Kalyra Winery.  A Tiki/Australian themed wine place......Right up our alley since we are big fans of Tiki culture.  So this was where we would start our Santa Barbara wine adventure.

It was an inviting place for wine tasting.... Like an indoor Tiki Bar.... but instead of Rum drinks and Mai Tai's..... It was wine that quenched these tiki's thirsts.

With Classic Rock playing in the background we relaxed and settled in for a little Wine Tasting

As we worked our way through the wines, we really enjoyed the Pinot Blanco and Mc2 wines which were both light and refreshing blends 

 There were a couple of dessert wines on the tasting and neither of us are big fans of dessert wines....In fact we almost passed on the dessert wines altogether .....which would have been a big mistake. These 2 dessert wines were the hit of the tasting and made their way into our to go bag.

The first dessert wine.....with the fun and catchy name The Sticky Wicket. (which we are enjoying as we write this blog).

The other incredible dessert wine was the Rare Tawny......This is exactly what a dessert wine should be.  Until today all the dessert wines we had tasted before were to strong or too sugary sweet  (if that is possible for a dessert fan like us)....  The Kalyra dessert wines were just perfect....Totally complimentary with chocolate or fudge or even toffee (We are enjoying the Sticky Wicket now with Trader Joe's dark chocolate peanut butter cups, Yum!!!).

The cool tiki vibe and classic music and of course tasty wines (in their cool bottles) has definitely put Kalyra at the top of our list of favorite wines and tasting rooms!!!   

In short we loved this place and our overall experience gets two big thumbs up from these two wine connoisseur's !!!

Hang Loose and enjoy this wonderful wine tasting location.

Check out their Website below.......

http://www.kalyrawinery.com/

And last but not least here is a link to check out Blondepixals photo blog

 Photography by Kimberly Lynn

http://blondepixals.blogspot.com/2012/05/seal-beach-surfers.html

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