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DAOU Family Estates, or as many refer them as DAOU Vineyards, in Paso Robles is renowned for their French wines and amazing vineyards view. Upon arrival on Hidden Mountain Road, we drove up the narrow road (meant for sharing both directions without lines) and through rows of vineyards that they own, we reached the top of the estate to the tasting room, where we stepped out to an overlook of their vineyards and hills of Paso Robles.

We arrived 10 minutes before our reservation time and decided to take a quick stroll around the vineyards and the chilly fall winds of the morning hit us abruptly like a boxing match. Around early-fall in Paso Robles, you get really chilly weather in the mornings but then it'd get hot to about mid-80s at peak during the day. It's this contrast every day around this season that makes the area the perfect place for growing wine grapes.

As we stepped inside the tasting room, we were greeted by the DAOU team and was welcomed with a welcome drink. Then, the hostess led us to our seats in the patio. Shortly after, our attendant came and asked us if we would like some blankets because it was a chilly morning at 10AM. We said, 'yes', and then she came back with our first pour of our tasting flight and 2 blankets. This is the second time a winery offered us blankets for a chilly morning during the fall season while wine tasting and I love this extra service! While waiting for our food to arrive, the attendant encouraged us to explore the property and walk down to the little amphitheater to get a great view of the vineyards. I got to walk up really close to the vineyards and be inches away from the wine grapes. It was an amazing estate experience and the property is very well kept!

Our food arrived a little bit after our second pour from the tasting menu. We saw that they had scallops on their food menu and decided to share it while we wine tasted. It was a great choice! It's a pretty penny for their food menu but the food was excellent so it made it worth it. It paired well with the second pour from the wine tasting menu, but I had forgotten that she said that so I drank the whole glass before our food arrived without thinking. Thankfully, our attendant noticed and went ahead and poured me another tasting of it without me having to ask! This is very attentive service and it goes to show why DAOU is so renowned and popular for tourists and visitors.

The scallops dish only came with 3 scallops and since my husband knew I enjoyed my first one, he sweetly let me have the 3rd one without having to split it. I would order this dish again if we ever come back in the future.

We try not to visit the same winery twice unless we're club members because there are 300 wineries, vineyards and tasting rooms in Paso Robles alone! Paso Robles is part of San Luis Obispo (SLO) County so if you include all of SLO County, there's even more than that. We're locals since we live in the county so if we want to go on a wine tasting adventure, we still have hundreds left to pick from. From the time that I posted this blog, we've finally hit the 50 mark and this took almost 5 years.

The tasting fee that we paid was $50 a person at DAOU (most likely will increase over time). For Paso Robles, it is considered more expensive than the majority of the wine tasting rooms in the area but still considerably cheaper than most wine tasting fees in Napa Valley. I would definitely recommend coming here if you're looking for a wine tasting experience with a birdseye-like view of a beautiful estate. They also offer a food menu so this makes it a great option for a special lunch with friends.

You can view my short video of my entire visit from the drive up to the walk down the vineyards below. Just press the white triangle play button.

After my memorable tasting experience and visit at DAOU Family Estates, I've put them under my top 10 wine tasting rooms to visit in all of San Luis Obispo County and had to bump one of them down. See my current top 10 favorite wine tasting rooms in the county.

DAOU Family Estate Address: 2777 Hidden Mountain Rd., Paso Robles, CA 93446

We get visitors coming to visit us at least once a year and we'd take them wine tasting in our county and if there is a bottle that we all really like, we'd buy one to save for later at the house. It's really elevated our home parties, especially if we've all visited that very winery together. I've gotten really good at opening a bottle of wine with a regular wine cork opener but if you feel like being fancy, you can check out some wine cork bottle openers that doesn't require pulling strength.