Santa Barbara Wine Country
We took at drive up to San Ynez and Los Olivos area from Santa Barbara. Driving up the mountains is not only gorgeous but the drastic change in climate is fascinating. Truly spectacular drive.
We checked out a few vineyards, nothing really rocked our boat taste wise but it was a nice way to spend the day. What is more interesting is thinking about what will this area be like 20 years from now. You got to Napa and it is way more sophisticated and built up. This particular wine region of SB is much more low key and mellow. Even the Los Olivos market is no comparison to Oakville Grocery. Perhaps it will stay like that, maybe not. As the grapes mature, the wines will be better and more people will come. Just a prediction.
We had lunch at the Los Olivos cafe where they filmed Sideways. Sideways, in some ways, opened up the tourist industry to this region. Like a snowball rolling down the mountain. The cafe was basic simple California cuisine. Nothing to write home about but a decent meal.
Glad we went. Gave us a different look at wine regions, different grapes and beautiful topography.
Comments (Archived):
Hi – I hadn’t read your blog in a month or so (had to lay off reading any blogs to plow through some house projects, travel etc.) Anyway, I’ve been interested to see that you were traveling in the central coast area about two weeks before I was. I took my son to Admitted Weekend at Cal Poly SLO and was also impressed by the growth of the area since I’d been there 6 years previous. It seems that the Paso Robles wine region has really taken off. Downtown San Luis Obispo has a lot of wine bars that feature the central coast wines now. Good pinot noirs and sauvignon blancs. It’s interesting that farm land is being replaced by vineyards.