Los Olivos Wine Merchant Restaurant

The Los Olivos Wine Merchant is where the foursome had their famous "five bottle plus dinner". The restaurant looks HUGE in the movie, but actually it is quite small.

In fact the right side of the interior has 2 rows of tables, maybe 15 in all. The left side, where they were seated in the movie, is a casual lounge where people can hang out and sip wines by the glass. There is even a Sideways book area in the back of the lounge area, if you want to buy copies of the DVD or other items.

The wine list is rather impressive here - you can try quite a range of selections of local wines. They began us with very good, fresh bred along with herbs and a dipping oil. The music was light and Italian in nature. As we came in for lunch, we ordered one of their many pizza choices. It was the Marguerite.

We happened to choose a Palmira Dolcetto to try which was $10 a glass. While it was sweet and nice, it just wasn't great or complex for what we'd expect for $10 a glass wine. We casually mentioned this to the waiter when we were paying our bill and he was extremely apologetic, even offering to bring us something else instead. In general he was amazingly quick, bringing us water before we asked, checking in on us and making sure we had everything we needed. Highest kudos go to the staff here.

We were quite amused at the number of visitors who came in talking about the Sideways movies. Tour groups were being planned and many people came in just to take pictures. Note that this is mid-week, several years after the movie had come out!

Well worth a visit.

Sideways movie review

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