Santa Barbara

 

Santa Barbara was our last major stop on this road trip adventure.  It wasn’t our first time visiting this lovely town. We celebrated our first wedding anniversary here, so it has a special place in my heart.

It’s a beautiful place and perfect for a romantic getaway, as many Southern Californians know.  We gave ourselves a bit of a luxury weekend that first time around and staid at the wonderful Fess Parker Resort in a room with a fantastic ocean view. We also had a very romantic dinner at Stella Mare's. Our anniversary happens to be near Valentine's Day, so the already cozy cottage was absolutely decked out with flowers and lights for the occasion.

Santa Barbara is also a great place for . . . you guessed it . . . wine tasting.   If you want to be able to hop from place to place all day, but still want the advantages of staying in city, Santa Barbara is the place to go. They have an Urban Wine Trail which consists of 11 wineries with tasting rooms in the city, most of which are within an easy walk from each other.

If you want to get further out into the vineyards in the surrounding areas, there are several companies offering wine tasting tours. Most of them even pick-up at the hotels.  On our first trip, we took a tour with Cloud Climbers and had a fantastic time.  This might not be for everyone as you’re riding around in the back of an open jeep, but it’s loads of fun and a great way to see the beautiful countryside.

Sadly, we had very limited time to spend in SB this time around – we were basically just passing through -- but we definitely had to stop. We hit just two tasting rooms.  Our first stop was a favorite from our first trip, Kunin Wines.

Greg is a fan of their Pape Star, a Rhone blend in the style of Chateauneuf- du-Pape. This time around we picked up the 2007, which is medium bodied, a little smoky, and quite earthy -- Greg calls it rocky.  It’s also reasonably priced at $22 a bottle at the tasting room.  Kunin also has good selection of Syrahs.  In addition to their regular tasting, they offer a Syrah vertical tasting, which is always a nice way to get to know a grape.  We picked up a bottle of the 2004 Syrah Alisos Vineyard. It is pretty fruity up front, but then it balances out with nice tannins and a little bit of smoke and pepper.

Jaffurs Wine Cellars was the last winery of the trip, and it was a grand finale.  Their operation is very small and the tasting room is pretty much right in the middle of their winery. It’s not fancy, but we really enjoyed the wines. We marked this one for our list of “someday” wine clubs. They too have several wonderful Syrah’s, but we opted to vary it up here. We went lighter on one purchase and bigger on the other.  The 2007 Grenache was the choice on the lighter side  --- well, not super light, but lighter.  They recommend pairing it as one would a Pinot.  As with some of our other choices, it has a little earth and spice, and nice tannins.  The final bottle of this trip was the 2008 Petite Syrah, and it is big and it is dark.  It’s fruity jammy up front, but it smooths out to a silky finish.

Before heading out of town, we had to stop for lunch.  Our Yosemite adopted family is based in SB and they recommended Brophy Bros., a casual bar and restaurant by the harbor. It was pretty bustling, even in the middle of the week, and you can tell that this is a place the locals love just as much as the tourists.  It’s got a great view and it’s family friendly.  I had the cioppino, which wasn’t quite as awesome as the one I had way back in SF at the Woodhouse Fish Co., but it was still pretty damn tasty.

Now that our tummies were full it was time to take our trunk-load of boutique California Reds and drive off into the sunset.

Sunset, down the coast, in Oceanside.

We’d soon find out that those bottles were going to have to make a cross-country move with us, but we’ll get to that soon enough.

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