Santa Barbara County has three major AVA’s: Santa Maria Valley in the north part of the county, Santa Ynez Valley in the center, and Santa Rita Hills in the central-west. There are also additional vineyards in Los Alamos and other areas that fall under the more general Santa Barbara County label, which also includes blends of grapes that come from more than one specific AVA, although Santa Rita Hills is technically a sub-AVA of Santa Ynez Valley so blends of the two may be labeled "Santa Ynez Valley".
According to the official Santa Barbara County wine map, there are 108 wineries available for visiting in the region. I spent four days wine tasting in Santa Rita Hills (SRH) and Santa Ynez Valley (SYV), but not Santa Maria Valley, visiting 15 wineries in the in process.
To reach the wine country from Santa Barbara, it’s a scenic drive northwest on the 101 for approximately 40 minutes till the 246 at Buellton. Turn left (west), and you are in the SRH AVA. Turn right (east), and you are in the SYV AVA. The Santa Ynez Valley area is relatively rural and consists of 5 small towns, including:
- Solvang, where we lodged, is a Danish village full of kitchy shops and restaurants that looks like it was ripped right out of Europe,
- Santa Ynez, an old-west stagecoach stop, and
- Los Olivos, home of art galleries, fine restaurants and more than a dozen wineries.
The landscape is in the Santa Ynez Valley is serene and picturesque, full of small farms, horse ranches, and vineyards framed by mountains. The vineyards are mostly planted Rhone and Bordeaux varietals (syrah, sauvignon blanc, merlot, etc.).
The further west you go into Santa Rita Hills, the more mountainous the landscape and the cooler the climate becomes. Farms and ranches are replaced by cow pastures, which are in-turn replaced by chaparral (and, in places, bare rock). This area is extremely rural, with no services for dozens of miles. The terroir is really distinctive here. Small pockets of vineyards dot the slopes and valleys where it is warm enough for grapes to ripen. Cooler-weather Burgundian varietals of pinot noir and chardonnay dominate, although some Rhone grapes, especially Syrah and Viogner are planted.
The coastal mountain range here is unusual in that it runs east-west instead of north-south, bringing cool ocean breezes to even the hottest, eastern-most vineyards of SYV, dropping temperatures at night, and making SRH the coolest fine-wine growing area in California in spite of being the southernmost.
Santa Barbara County wines were popularized in the movie Sideways, and it’s hard to underestimate what the movie did to the wine business out here, not to mention kicking off a huge nation-wide pinot trend. As someone who had been visiting the area regularly for years before the movie came out, I was witness to the dramatic change: the price of local pinot noir has tripled in some cases, and both quality and planting have increased. At the same time, local merlot has been relegated to a second-tier grape status, only now gradually regaining its reputation. Before Sideways and pinot, the trendy grape in the early 2000s was syrah, pushed to popularity by the Rhone Rangers.
Pinot Noir
These trends made their mark on the wine. I was most impressed with the pinot noirs, many displaying elegance, minerality, and complexity, especially the ones from SRH. Many have the structure and backbone to age a decade or more. Most are characterized by a racy, but not overly bracing acidity indicative of their pedigree of cool-climate but relatively southern latitude growing conditions.
The 2006s were particularly impressive--muscular, well structured, and perfectly balanced--most packed with minerals, earth, leather, and stone fruits.
The 2007s were at an awkward stage: fruit forward and tannic, but showing hints of the grace and elegance that they will become of with bottle age.
The better producers used a percentage of new French oak barrels balanced with neutral oak to mature the wine and give it extra flavor, complexity, and structure without overwhelming with woodsy or vanilla flavors.
Best producers:
Alma Rosa
Sanford
Melville
Foley
Best value:
Lincourt
Syrah
Unlike the pinots, which were mostly all excellent, syrah was a mixed bag. While some syrahs were delicious--fruit forward but with a perfumed elegance, a racy backbone, and balanced oak, others were over-oaked, over-extracted, too hot, too sweet, or unbalanced in some way or another.
Once again, SRH had an advantage. The cooler climate terroir produced more elegant wine.
The winery that really knocked my socks off for syrah is Tensley--my last stop of the entire trip. Their wines were truly aristocratic in their elegance and balance.
Very best producer:
Tensley
Best producers:
Qupe
Melville
Andrew Murray
Merlot
Sideways did a lot of hating on merlot, and I don't blame them. While there are some excellent merlot producers in Napa, most American merlot is not worth much consideration.
While there were a few good, delicious merlots that I tasted which were orders of magnitude better than the typical, nothing was striking. Many producers had some for tasting, but no one concentrated on it.
Best producers:
Sunstone
Whites
I typically shy away from American white wines. I find them either lacking in acid and too sweet, way over-oaked, lacking in character, or all of the above. The whites I tasted however blew me away.
It seems like producers have listened to the criticism and have started making racier wines, and using oak in proper proportions. The chardonnays were excellent--an antithesis of your typical California chardonnay. There was pinot gris, pinot blancs, sauvignon blanc. Of the Rhone varietals, the floral viognier was the most popular, and there were excellent bottlings of roussanne and marsanne, especially at Qupe.
Look for SRH fruit for the chardonnays, pinots, and viogners.
Best producers:
Gainey
Qupe
Foley
Alma Rosa
Lincourt
Sunstone
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