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Fishman the Grape

Fishman the Grape – Wine Touring in Santa Barbara
a wine blog

By Daniel Fishman
Eat Vancouver writer
Wednesday, July 18, 2007

If I think back on my whole life, one day stands out has the funniest, best, most hilarious day ever. It was the day after Slope Day 2005, in Ithaca, NY, and a group of about 15 Beta alumni and friends went wine touring in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. What followed was 4 hours of ridiculousness the likes of which I have never seen before or since. I lost my voice from laughing so hard. It, sir, was a delight. I don’t think we tasted anything the whole day that I would ever drink again, but it didn’t matter. These days, I still love to go wine tasting, but the event is a lot more subdued, and I am a lot more concerned with the quality of the wine I am drinking. A recent trip to LA afforded me the opportunity to take a day trip to Santa Barbara County’s wine country, as immortalized in Sideways, and it most certainly did not disappoint.

The wineries start about 30 minutes inland from the city of Santa Barbara (itself only about 75 minutes from West Los Angeles), and continue for miles and miles, far too many to hope to visit in one day. We decided to focus on the closer areas: Santa Ynez, Solvang, and Los Olivos. In each town there seem to be a number of tasting rooms for various winemakers, and there are also tasting rooms at many of the vineyards in the surrounding countryside. Both options have their advantages: the in-town tasting rooms are easy to get to, whereas taking the time to drive to the wineries themselves will provide you with the opportunity to taste in quaint tasting rooms nestled among the vines that made the wine possible. There doesn’t seem to be any correlation between the tasting room type and quality, some of each were great, and some not so much.

We started out at a tasting room in the tiny town of Santa Ynez for a winery I was very excited to try, Artiste. Artiste is different from nearly all other wineries I can think of in that all of their wines are blends not only of grapes, but also of vintages. Artiste’s tasting room is set up to look like an artist’s studio, and all of their beautiful bottles have a piece of impressionist art for a label. In fact, as explained to us while tasting, they actually pick a piece of art first, then a name for the wine, and only then do they decide how they are going to blend that wine. Each wine is done in a certain waymeant to evoke a style of wine (e.g. Piedmont, Neo-Burgundian, Bordeaux, etc.) . All in all they were excellent, with highlights being the Rustique (Bordeaux-$76), Kind of Blue (American-$46), Le St. Andre (Rioja-$48), and Perfecto (Cote du Rhone-$36). Unfortunately, these wines are only available at the tasting room and restaurants, so unless you are in Santa Barbara, it’ very unlikely you will find them.

Next up were Sunstone, Brander, and Bridlewood, all of which I thought were pretty unremarkable, although Brander’s pink Castle was pretty funny, and Sunstone also had a nice tasting room. Pam really liked Sunstone’s wine as well, but the only one that I was impressed with was their Bordeaux-style 2004 Eros ($50), although Fred’s Red, a Cab Franc/Merlot blend was a pretty good deal at $12. Bridlewood’s best attribute was their nice patio overlooking the vineyards. With plenty of tables, it was the perfect spot for a lunch of cheese and bread while tasting. We also stopped off for a quick olive oil tasting at Rancho Olivos, which was very good, and a nice change of pace.

After our late, leisurely lunch we only had time for one more stop: Blackjack Ranch Vineyards, which you might recognize from Sideways (or not, it’s in there for about 3 seconds). I was a little worried about checking out a winery that seemed so proud of its movie appearance, but hey, I would be happy if I was in a major motion picture too. And guess what? I was WAY off. Blackjack Ranch not only has the best tasting in town (11 tastes for $10), they also have some of the best wine around. Their 2003 Billy Goat Hill Merlot ($38) stood out as excellent, though at $18 the Cote de Los Olivos Merlot was also really nice and a bit of a steal. But the highlight (of the whole day) had to be the 2002 Harmonie, a Bordeaux-blend and an absolute monster. I gave it my highest rating of the day by a lot, and that might have been too low. I think it is a wine that is worthy of its high price tag ($60), and it makes me incredibly curious to taste their 2003 Harmonie, which retails for $100, but sadly was not up for tasting. Another time perhaps…

The main thing that I learned from this trip is that one day in wine country is never enough. I can’t wait to go back, and would recommend Santa Barbara County to any wine-lover, -liker, or -tolerater.