Did I mention how awesome our experience was? My wife and I recently took a cruise from Seattle and Santa Barbara was our first stop. Typically, we seek out local adventures that are not offered on the ship as we usually enjoy being away from our shipmates for a while. In our quest to find something more our style, versus riding around in a large bus all day, we found this tour.
We got off the ship’s tender and located just across the street; we were picked up by our guide & owner of the company, William. Once loaded into the van we headed east for about 45 minutes, or so to the little community of Los Olivos. Prior to our arrival, we opted for the 12-mile route, there are also a 15 and a 9 mile tours available.
Once in Los Olivos we put on our safety equipment, did some final bike fitting and headed on down the road with our guide. About 3 or 4 miles down the path, we stopped at Clairmont Lavender Farm. Based on our early October visit, the lavender had all been harvested, but we did enjoy the aroma, especially around the “still” – it was almost a rich deep honey smell.
Back on the bikes, we headed further down the road through the Danish community of Solvang, once through the city we headed up a few hills to the ending point of the cycling portion of our tour, mile 12. Once there, we stepped into Rusack Vineyards for wine tasting. The wine and the service at the winery was excellent, but not the best part! While we were tasting wine, William headed out on his bike to the starting point to bring the van to us. As he has a rule no riding while drinking- and we couldn’t have been happier!
In the comfort of the van, weighted down by our bottle of wine purchases, we headed back to the community of Los Olivos. Out of the van and into the Kaena Wine Tasting facility, another excellent choice for wine tasting. After our tasting their we headed across the street for Olive Oil tasting at Olive Tree Hill – friendly staff and a huge selection of infused olive oils and flavored balsamic vinegars inside. Once again, we purchased wine at Kaena and then a case of various olive oils and balsamic to enjoy once we returned home.
Last stop Rideau winery; we got out of the van, headed to the tasting room. While we were enjoying the wines, William had set up a picnic lunch on the patio of the winery. Not your typical picnic fare, we enjoyed freshly made sandwiches, one had pesto on it that was so fresh they must have hand-chopped the pinon nuts that morning, just before preparing the sandwiches, an arugula salad with fresh grapefruit segments and a very light olive oil dressing, assorted cheeses and crackers, and Amoretti cookies for dessert! All paired extremely well with our wines.
Again, this was an awesome tour! The itinerary well thought out, perfect selections of wineries to experience (none of them produced over 8500 cases of wine a year – so family-run wineries); easy cycling with a couple of hills to push you and make you appreciate the upcoming tastings. William was more than happy to modify the tour in order to make our departure time on the cruise. At the end of the day we did not feel as we had been simply rushed in and out, we felt we had ample time for every experience from wine tasting, olive oil tasting, lunch and cycling. William’s gracious hospitality throughout the entire day made our experience all that much more enjoyable.
I would recommend this tour to anyone that has a desire to cycle and do wine tasting, and definitely recommend it to those arriving via cruise ship and want a chance to enjoy the wine country of Santa Barbara! William, thank you for everything, we had a blast and will be sure to tell all of our friends!