TASTE

Yes, I loved TASTE, but unfortunately, it has closed. :(
I’m sorry to break the bad news.
I’m especially sorry I found my lost TASTE card 2 days after they closed their doors.

We went there last year and really enjoyed it — what a great selection of SLO wines! Staff was also super-​helpful, too.
Are they still in operation? I heard a rumor that they were closing : — (

I can’t believe that everyone is endorsing this concept. Yes, they have a great selection. Yes, the inert-​gas-​filled-​bottle system keeps the wines fresh so they can have a massive amount of open bottles. Yes, it’s a great location.
But COME ON! Do you really enjoy being served by a robot! This is NOT wine tasting, this is wine shopping. I suppose it’s a good «wine store» with the added bonus of being able to try the wines beforehand. But it’s a terrible «tasting room». You don’t get that personal attention and firsthand knowledge of the vineyard that you get at an actual winery.
Perhaps I’m just pessimistic. But I just hate to see wineries replaced by such a consumerist establishment as this. It’s like the Wal-​Mart of tasting rooms. It signals the downfall of American culture. Ok, maybe I’m being too extreme. But please, go support the actual winery tasting rooms.

They offer a really unique approach to wine tasting. You load a card with money and insert it to pour 1 ounce tastes. I had fun with this concept, but I was a little disappointed at how tiny the shop was because the pictures online portrayed a much larger shop.

This place is pretty amazing. You get a charge card and you can choose what you want to drink. I drink only reds so i left with purple teeth and a huge smile but i was happy. I had no cares in the world. I dont know anything about wine, but i do know about price and you get about 5 tastings for $ 10. A little steep but i love that you have free reign of what to drink and when you drink it. We stayed for little over an hour. Felt a little weird getting taste after taste. Complete and utter alki? yea… i tried to play it off.

Mumsy doesn’t drive or drink much and I didn’t want to drink and drive so I went here for a one-​stop shop of all wines made in the SLO area. Such a good idea. I bought a $ 10 tasting card, slid it into the slot and got my pours ranging from $ 1.75 to $ 2.25 and walked out $ 50 poorer with two rather spectacular wines in my grubby paws.
The girl working there is studying viniculture at Cal Poly (how cool is that!) so knew her stuff.
Wish they had little crackers or something, though, and maybe a bar with a couple of stools so that you don’t have to stand around looking like a lemon, gulping lots of wine. Otherwise, I’d definitely try it again. *hic*

This wine-​tasting store is a brilliant idea! I first visited several years ago and returned last year. It’s a classy, high-​tech presentation of regional wines. As other reviews indicated, the fancy, automated dispensers keep air out (oxidation), refridgerate (as appropriate) and pour/​dispense your choice of samples. It’s a fantastic deal! You purchase a debit card, with the balance refundable, from the very helpful and knowledgeable employees, who often are studying viticulture/​viniculture at Cal Poly, SLO. While you should definitely go wine-​tasting at vineyards, this is a perfect complement (note: many wineries don’t want to build expensive wine-​tasting rooms at their vineyards, so TASTE may be the only way to try, short of buying a bottle). Ask the employees for recommendations, based on what you like. Don’t worry about fancy terminology. Just start with dry or sweet, citrus or tropical fruit or berry, spicy or chocolatey, etc. Have fun – it gets better by the glass! ;)

What a nice place to go to for wine tasting if you don’t want to drive that far to actual vineyards in San Luis Obispo. They have many selections and good customer service. I think they have the service where you put money in a prepaid card and you walk around the store with glasses and each wine varies price from $ 1 to $ 5.
It is also located in in Downtown SLO, so it’s always a good place to go wine taste before or after eating a meal.

My first question upon entering this place was «why don’t we have something like this in the Bay Area yet?» Or do we but I don’t know it from being lost in the land of domestication? It’s candyland for wine tasters. We easily spent a couple of hours in there filling and refilling our card and wandering around pouring our own tastes from cool dispensers.
I found this on place on Unilocal in preparation for my visit back to the Central Coast for a friend’s wedding and to share the memories of my college days at Poly with my new husband.
Minus 1-​star for price per taste which ranges from about $ 1.35 — $ 2.95, the darker the more expensive in general. You’d think it being self-​serve and self-​educating (tasting notes posted above bottles on cards), that it’d be less expensive than going to a traditional tasting room.

This is a great place to get a good sampling of the local wine offerings. It is operated by the Edna Valley Wine Growers association, so most of the wines are from that area except for a few.
You pay any amount you want, it is filled into your smart card, and you use that to plug into the wine dispensing machines. Most wines are priced for tasting between $ 1.85 to $ 2.65, which gives you enough for 2 — 4 sips for tasting, depending how you sip.
For $ 10.35, we tried these samplings:
Wild Wood WInery 2003 Ginas’s Syrah. Dark, rich, spicy fruit. Bottle is $ 28. 480 cases, fermented 18 months in American and French Oak.
Ancient Peaks 2005 Merlot. Black fruit aromas and tastes. 14 month 50 – 50 oak aging. $ 14 bottle.
Per Bacco Cellars 2006 Pinot Grigio. Cooler climate, crisp, notes of citrus and melons, Stainless steel with no Malolactic fermentation.
840 case production, $ 19/​bottle.
Claiborne & Churchill 2006 Dry Gewurtztraminer. Spicy with fruit and vanilla tones. More complex and less sweet than the Gewurz you are used to. 30% barrel and 70% cold tank fermentation. $ 18.
Kelsey See Canyon 2004 Orange Muscat $ 17 per bottle. Early heat wave increased sugar contents in this orange dessert wine.
Go here first then follow-​up to the winery of your choice nearby. Taste is in downtown SLO on Osos near Monterey.

What a fantastic idea! You fill up a little charge card up with as much money as you would like and then self serve by slipping the card into slots located above the bottle of wine you would like to try. A tube dispenses the allotted amount directly in your glass. Genius! There are lots of choices, all from local growers, so we were able to sample a lot of local wines that we missed when we could only visit a few vineyards. Staff members are friendly and informed. After asking you a few questions about wines you like they can steer you towards something you are sure to like. The interior is slick and modern and there is a small but lovely patio with limited outdoor seating, perfect for enjoying the fresh air along side your wine and for people watching if that is your thang. I hope they start opening up more of these types of places around the bay area.

This is the best concept ever in a wine bar. 72 different wines from the region all available for tasting with the ability to see all the labels and tasting notes.
Load up a charge card with a few bucks and go around to the different bottles and buy a taste of what interests you.
Traveling up and down 101 between San Francisco and Santa Barbara with small kids, the wife and I started to feel a bit deprived of all the great wines in area. Its hard to get out to all the little wineries off the beaten track and the kids would get bored or wouldn’t even be let in the door. For dinners, we end up at kid friendly places that don’t always have good wine selections if they have anything at all.
The way we were able to maneuver with the kids was that one of us would stay outside while the other was tasting. In a pinch, we could pass a glass to the other outside.
Very knowledgeable and helpful staff. I wish they had such a set up in Sonoma or Santa Barbara.

How fun! A great after dinner place to try some wine later in the night. When you’re not satisfied from wine tasting only to 5pm in the wineries, head to this place that has consolidated all the wines in the area in one place with cool machines. It was quite fun and unique, the first of its kind that I’ve been to.

TASTE offers 72 unique wines from local vineyards in the San Luis Obispo, Avila, Edna, Arroyo Grande and Nipomo regions.
The legend goes, 17 local vineyards got together one blustery night and fantasized about how one could conveniently taste their wines together, like one big, happy co-​op. Cranky and weathered from stomping grapes and trying to find the perfect combination of blackberry, blueberry, plum and white pepper, Rancho Arroyo Grande laments: «No one ever comes to our vineyard. I mean, so what if CCM calls us the Wine of the Future; we’re 30 minutes away from Salisbury AND Kynsie!»
«Well if you had a triple-​gold winning 2004 Pinot Noir like MY vineyard than maybe people would think that you were worth the 11.1 mile drive,» PerBacco snorts.
«Come on now, everyone, we must work together. Let’s try to be peaceful here,» Baileyana insists, «here, everyone have a glass of my Grand Firepeak Curvee Chardonnay. You know, it’s Old World Inspired, Surpassing New World Standards.»
«Oh shut up! That’s easy for you to say, Baileyana, you Frenchie! What with your three brands – everyone goes to go to your winery because you’re sold in 5 continents and at just about every grocery store in California! Hey, didn’t your GFC Chardonnay win 2 golds? Wow, this is very smooth-​textured and nicely balanced. I really like the marriage between the oak and pineapple.»
«Well listen,» Piedra Creek declares, «Baileyana’s right – fighting will get us nowhere. Let’s all come up with a solution, and quick! How about we all pitch-​in and rent a store in Downtown SLO, which will serve as a venue for everyone to try our select wines, all under one roof! We can get some of Cal Poly’s attractive and eloquent English majors to work at our store and make suggestions to customers!»
Sextant chirps in: «Dude, Piedra, you’re such a badass! What a great idea, I mean, my vineyard isn’t even IN San Luis Obispo County! This is the future, man! Now let’s get sauced!»
And that was the beginning…
For the tourist on the go, this idea is brilliant, because who has hours upon hours to spend driving 61 miles in between all the vineyards, not including the starting and ending points in downtown SLO. Yes, I Google Mapped it.
Each one of these vineyards offers around 3 – 5 wines to sample in the TASTE store. One of the employees will explain this to you as you enter. You purchase a card which you can add money to (I suggest $ 15 – 20 a person, which gives you access to 72 different 1 oz. samples in the store. Prices range from around $ 1.60 to $ 3.20, from what I can remember. Most everything you’ll find is in the $ 1.85 range, like C.D. mentioned in their review.
Wines are separated by type. You have circular displays of Zins, Merlots, blends, Pinots, chilled, etc. The staff is encouraged to have at least 2 tastes per shift, so they are pretty well-​informed and can help you find what you are looking for. There are also tasting notes above every wine, which are all very seductive and erotically written. My favorite is the See Canyon Apple Merlot, made of 50% apple cider, 50% Merlot. I’m not sure what this means, but it is known as «The Perfect Hot Tub Wine,» which automatically wins my affection.
TASTE also has a Happy Hour schedule. Monday nights is «Industry Night,» where they offer wines from local restaurants/​dealers and offer 2 oz. samples instead of 1 oz. Tuesday is also known as «Two-​oz Tuesdays», where all the machines are set to give 2 oz. samples for the price you would be paying for 1 oz. Wednesday allows you to have $ 5 tasting with the wine makers or vineyard representatives, and Thursday there is live music on the patio during Farmer’s Market. Lastly, on Friday, there is supposedly a discount, but I’m not sure how much.
All in all, this place is legit. A very cool concept and conveniently located in the heart of Downtown San Luis Obispo (Monterey and Osos). My only complaint is there’s not enough Sangiovese.

This place is so cool The other reviewers pretty much summed up this place so no need to be redundant by posting something thats already been posted because thats redundant.
If you put 20 bucks on the card it does go a long way. This does beat having to drive out to all the different local wineries — everything is right here in the store for you to try out. So to me, its not that expensive when you are saving on gas, etc. There is a lot of good local wine to be had, I even walked out of there with half a case of awesome Central Coast wine. (They do discounts on such here.) Highly recommended.

great concept, pre-​pay for a gift card type thing and them put the card in tha machines to try the wines your want. The prices for each taste seemed a tad high $ 1.85+ per taste, but I’m sure are based on the cost of the bottle. If It they were a little lower this place would totally get 5 stars.

This is a shnazzy joint! Brand spankin new technology to regulate wine temp, electronic cards let you debit your tastes from the glass refrigerator that dispenses your wine of choice. High ceilings with rotating shelves remind you of angels bringing you the blanc of your dreams.
S’a bit ‘spensive thou. But damm good!