Patty's Pinot Closet publishes this newsletter on the enjoyment and appreciation of Pinot Noir. We welcome you to enjoy the newsletters and to share them with others. This, my fifth newsletter, covers Santa Barbara County Pinot Noirs. Tasting was done at wineries, wine festivals, and during very lovely dinners and lunches. Subsequent newsletters cover other pinot noir growing areas.

Santa Barbara County Food and Wine

Recipes  

• Santa Maria Style Tri-tip
  
• Ranch-Style Pinquito Beans
  
• Tomato Salsa

Restaurants  I'd like to be up front and say that I love In-N-Out Burgers. I feel that I can do that now that the Associated Press reported that Julia Child, ate In-N-Out burgers while in the hospital recovering from knee surgery. Their new Double-Double® Burger (protein style) contains two 100% pure beef patties, hand-leafed lettuce, tomato, sauce, two slices of American cheese, and onions stacked high on leaves of lettuce (no bun). It's absolutely delicious – a double-double without the bun! The In-N-Out Burger in Santa Barbara County is just North of Santa Barbara on Hwy 101.

The Hitching Post  The Hitching Post in Buellton, CA serves really good BBQed beef cooked in the Santa Maria Style. You can eat there if you're lucky enough to be in this truly beautiful area or they'll ship to you using Second Day UPS.

Alisal River Grill  The River Grill at The Alisal River Course in Solvang. I especially enjoyed a Caesar Salad with Grilled Marinated Lemon Chicken Breast at the River Grill. This informal golf course grill serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner; and local wines.

Hotels  I'd like to recommend the Historic Santa Maria Inn built in 1917. We had a lovely corner room with wrap around windows and window seat. It's also one of the few historic California hotels that's pet friendly with over an acre of grounds and lush garden areas to walk your pet. Besides the lovely Garden Room Restaurant and Olde English Tap Room, in the cellar they have a Wine Cellar & Bar that serves a large selection of local wines by the glass. You can also get good Santa Maria BBQ here. One last plus for this hotel – it's reasonably priced!

On the not so reasonably priced but oh so very nice is the Alisal Guest Ranch in Solvang. Set on a 10,000-acre working cattle ranch, this one-of-a-kind resort blends the best of nature with exceptional golf, horseback riding, tennis, fishing, team-building facilities, conference rooms, first-class accommodations and fine dining. The restaurant at the ranch is open only to the guests but the Alisal River Grill is open to the public and a great place for lunch if you bring your own wine – their wine list is very limited. Both the Alisal Guest Ranch and the Alisal River Grill are located between the Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Rita Hills for easy touring of both those wine areas.

Wine Festivals

Santa Barbara Wine Festivals May 15th, 2004 Vintners' Festival at Firestone Meadow October (2nd weekend) Celebration of Harvest Festival Other Central Coast Wine Festivals: March 5 & 6 2004 4th Annual World of Pinot Noir 29 April - 1 May 28th Annual Monterey Wine Festival April 29 - May 1, 2004 The Fourth Annual World Wine Market Exhibition and Conference, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco

2003 SBC Celebration of Harvest Festival

Tasting

• Los Olivos Tasting Room, a cute little place to taste many Santa Barbara County wines in the quaint town of Los Olivos – right on Grand Avenue
• Santa Barbara County Winery Touring Map – Every year, the Santa Barbara County Vintners' Association publishes a map of the area that shows where the wines of many of Association's member wineries can be tasted and purchased. The maps are available at most tasting rooms or you can have them send you one.

Santa Barbara County Pinot Noirs

Santa Barbara County Wine History

Grape growing and wine production go back more than 200 years in Santa Barbara County to when Father Junipero Sierra brought grape vine cuttings from Mexico in 1782. Located in the San Jose Creek area, the largest mission vineyard contained 25 acres of grape vines. A mission winery built in 1804 still stands in Goleta just north of Santa Barbara.

A hundred years after Father Junipero Sierra brought grape vines from Mexico, Justinian Caire imported grape slips from France and planted a 150-acre vineyard on Santa Cruz Island just off the coast of Santa Barbara County.

Santa Barbara legend has it that the trunk of a grapevine planted in 1842 on a farm in Carpinteria grew to nine feet around. It's arbor covered two acres and it had an annual yield of ten tons of grapes! The report doesn't say if it was pinot noir!

Present day wine growing in Santa Barbara County began with grape planting in the Santa Maria Valley in the early 1960s. Santa Ynez Valley followed close behind.

I first became aware of Santa Barbara County wines in the late 1970's through the beautiful Sauvignon Blancs made by Fred Brander at Santa Ynez Winery. Fred now has his own winery, The Brander Vineyard, and he's still producing those wonderful Sauvignon Blancs.

In the early 1970s Richard Sanford searched California looking for the perfect place to grow pinot noir and believed they had found it in what's now the Santa Rita Hills AVA. The only problem was it was owned by a farmer who didn't want to sell. After several years the farmer finally capitulated and sold him the land and he planted pinot noir grape vines and built a winery. In 1975 he produced a Sanford & Benedict Pinot Noir that took the wine drinking community by storm. When I visited his winery around 1980 he had no electricity and cooled his winery by bringing cold water from a stream above them and running it over the roof.

Today more than 100 wineries reside in Santa Barbara County and more than a million cases of wine are produced annually. In 2002 Santa Barbara County harvested 16,667 acres of grapes for a value of $73 million.

Santa Barbara County American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) Santa Barbara County contains three American Viticultural Areas (AVAs). The first two established were Santa Inez Valley and Santa Maria Valley. The third and most promising AVA for pinot noir is the Santa Rita Hills contained within the Santa Ynez Valley AVA. A fourth area, The Los Alamos Valley, is not yet an AVA. Santa Barbara County shares the Central Coast AVA with six other counties, Alameda, Monterey, San Benito, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz. Contents of bottles labeled with an AVA must contain 85 percent of grapes grown from that federally designated region. Santa Maria Valley:  Fog and wind-swept Santa Maria Valley claims to have the longest grape growing season in California. This is the home of the well known pinot noir vineyards such as Bien Nacido and Dierberg. Some of the Wineries in this AVA (well known for their pinot noir) are Au Bon Climat, Brophy Clark Cellars, Brucher, Byron, Cambria, Cold Heaven, Costa de Oro, Cottonwood Canyon, Dierberg, Foxen, J. Kerr, McKeon-Phillips, Qupé, Rancho Sisquoc and Tantara. Santa Ynez Valley:  Considerably warmer, this AVA excels in growing Syrah, other Rhône varietals, Bordeaux and Italian varietals. Wineries based in Santa Ynez Valley include Andrew Murray, Arthur Earl, Beckmen, Bernat, Blackjack Ranch, Brander, Bridlewood, Buttonwood Farm, Carhartt, Curtis, Domaine Santa Barbara, Epiphany, Fess Parker, Firestone, Gainey, Hitching Post, Kahn, Kalyra, Koehler, LinCourt, Los Olivos Vintners, Mosby, Presidio, Rideau, Royal Oaks, Rusack, Star Lane, Stolpman, Sunstone, Vandale, Verdad and Zaca Mesa. Santa Rita Hills:  The sedimentary soils with patches of limestone combined with a maritime influence convinced Sanford & Benedict decades ago that this was the perfect place to grow pinot noir. Time and some great wines are proving them right. They became an AVA in 2001 contained within the Santa Ynez Valley AVA. Wineries are planting the newer clones of pinot noir such as 667, 115 and 2A. Some believe these new clones produce wine with better structure and complexity. Here you'll see grape vines planted on steep wind swept hillsides. Wineries known for their pinot noir in this AVA include Casa Cassara, Clos Pepe, Fiddlehead, Flying Goat, Foley Estates, Gypsy Canyon, Huber Cellars, Lafond, Longoria, Melville, Sanford, Santa Barbara Winery, and Sea Smoke. Los Alamos Valley:  This wine region, south of Santa Maria and west of Santa Ynez, is cooler than the Santa Ynez Valley and warmer than the Santa Maria Valley. Currently two wineries - Bedford-Thompson and Chimére - are based in the Los Alamos area.

Santa Barbara AVAs Santa Rita Hills

All of the wines listed in the newsletters are listed on the website. Previous reviews did not contain links to the wineries, which have been added, if available. Where possible, prices listed below have been taken from the winery website or other retail sources and are included for relative comparison only. Your price may be different.

©2003 Patty's Pinot Closet. All Rights Reserved.