This deliciously informative tour covered three aspects of Santa Barbara County’s Santa Ynez Valley wine industry: a winery, a vineyard, and a combination of the two.
Our personable and extremely knowledgeable guide, Steven, and the winemakers themselves or their reps instructed on us on how Santa Barbara vintages stack up against those other California wine-growing areas. They also explained the taste, ecological, and health advantages of their sustainable organic wines over ordinary “supermarket” offerings, and the nuts and bolts of the Sideways-country wine business. During the tastings themselves, we savored the unique attributes of a wide selection of local whites, reds, and rosés, with emphasis on the differences between varietals and blends.
One quibble might sound odd for a wine-tasting tour: too much wine. Six to eight samples per stop may just be too much of a great thing. I also would have appreciated a more physically active tour of the winemaking process — e.g., strolls through vineyards, visits to winery bottling lines and barrel rooms — instead of rather lengthy presentations by the winemakers in tasting rooms.
Nonetheless, I highly recommend the tour to those who are already knowledgeable about wines and would like to spend a day roaming the hills of Santa Barbara Country becoming more so.