Where am I?

I know I’m in paradise, but where? The room décor is wine bottles, wine sayings painted on the walls, wine storage racks, wine barrels, and shelves of wonderfully flavored olive oils. Outside on a beautiful patio with light fixtures made from wine bottles, a wooden screen with wine bottles inserted and I am looking over an unobstructed view of the ocean with a large hill and lighted business area at its base. Then my glass of heavenly Síntesís is served with a spectacular cheese board. Am I in Italy or perhaps the Northern California coast? No, I’m at El Tapeo in the Laos Mar Hotel in Puerto Peñasco, a paradise within our paradise.

 

El Tapeo

Laura opened her establishment in April of this year and continually works to refine it. I recently attended a wine tasting conducted by 101 winery of Ensenada, B.C. and Mexico. Ivan and Alex led us through tasting 5 red wines. A couple of them were blends which are my favorite. Each wine was accompanied by a different, perfectly matched tapas dish prepared by Laura and her wonderful staff. Laura plans to have wine tasting about every 6 weeks with a different winery.

 

More Offerings

In addition to the wine tastings, the wines for sale by the bottle or glass, the wonderful ambiance and tapas, there is also live music by the Rojo Acústico duo of Rodolfo and Jorge who play on Thursday and Saturday starting about 8:00 p.m. On Friday they have “open mic” and entertainment by Rudolfo.

After your first visit, I know you will plan to go back and keep in touch as Laura is working on more offerings, including gift baskets which will be available for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I think this would be a great place for a wedding.

 

Change of pace

If you are looking for a change of pace, some great wine (they have full service bar also), snacks and acoustic music, you must give this great place a try. Recently friends and I stopped in for a break from the noise in the Malecon after participating in the bike rally – which is a whole other story that I will leave to others to write. Yep, that’s me on the back of my friend Doug’s bike. He road down from Las Vegas. This was his 3rd rally and he says it is the best.  He and his buddies like it better than the ones they go to in the U.S.