For those of you who read my blog regularly, you will see that I really enjoy drinking wine, talking about wine, and writing about wine. Since I am based out of Los Angeles, we have the ability to drive to those famous wineries in California in the north. I think we are really spoiled rotten here because I can say to my husband that I want to do some wine tasting on Wednesday, and by Saturday afternoon we’ll be doing just that.
Santa Barbara and its area hills are home to some of the best wine. Its really a hidden gem against Napa and Sonoma in our neighboring bay area. This area was made famous from the movie, Sideways, and now the whole effect has touched many parts of the city and its surrounding areas. I can read online about how there are tours given with the entire Sideways movie in mind. You can even eat the same dishes they ordered! Ok, so that part I don’t really particularly like that much, but the rest of the town is really quite lovely.
There’s something so calming about scheduling an appointment with a wine maker who only accepts 10 or fewer guests in a day. Where he spends 2 hours wining and educating you on his work and his passion. There isn’t the Napa frenzy where you just stand around a big tasting room, and sticking your arm through a crowd to get your 1/2 oz (if that!) of Napa grape juice.
What did I see and do up there you ask?
We were lucky and got some recommendations on local eateries that even the wine makers frequent.
We tried Patrick’s Side Street Cafe, and met Patrick himself. He’s a crazy and fun guy. He loves to meet and talk to all of his regulars and make new friends as well. From the exterior it really doesn’t look like much, and in fact, without a recommendation I would have just skipped it altogether. Look at it…doens’t it just look like a shack? Trust me though, it was verrrry tasty and I would highly recommend making a trip and meeting Patrick.
We did plenty of wine tasting while up there. We visited some of the usual haunts and then got to see a couple of open houses. I would recommend just driving around with one of those maps and trying a few wineries. Its just fun that way to find those tiny tasting rooms where the people actually talk to you about the process. I personally like Melville since they have consistently great product.
Oh, I must mention my celebrity spotting!
On our second night in Los Olivos, we went to eat dinner at the famous Mattei’s Tavern. We saw Matt LeBlanc there with a blond on Valentine’s Day! I guess he enjoys his wine too. I thought it was really funny that we saw him since no one really famous gets spotted around Los Olivos, where people are locals for the most part. Mattei’s food was good also, but we didn’t have quite the same experience as we did with Patrick. Either way, both were great choices and we had a belly full of some great food AND WINE, of course.
I didn’t really go into detail about the wineries up in Santa Barbara / Los Olivos. If you want to read more about the places we visited, check out the California Wine Guy blog, he posted all the details there: http://cawineguy.blogspot.com/.
