These are the best places to go in Santa Barbara Wine Country

Hanging out in the vineyard of Roblar Winery in Los Olivos in Santa Barbara Wine Country.

Let’s talk about wine and good times in Santa Barbara wine country. When people talk about it, they don’t just mean the city of Santa Barbara. The best places to go in Santa Barbara wine country are almost an hour north of Santa Barbara. That is where the vineyards and wineries are. That is where you will find the Santa Ynez and Santa Maria Valleys. Just saying.

By the way, best is subjective. You are going so you can discover more wines you enjoy.

This is the area.

This is where you should go.

Refresher course: There are wineries, and vineyards and tasting rooms. They may or may not be in the same place. Spoiler alert: Santa Barbara has no vineyards within the city. Beautiful beaches, yes. Vineyards not so much. (One of my next posts will be about the wine tasting rooms in the city of Santa Barbara).

Santa Barbara is so beautiful.

But there are no vineyards here.

Los Olivos, Solvang, Buellton, and Lompoc (yep, Lompoc) are where you want to go for your best wine country experiences. Check out the map above. They are reasonably close together. Santa Barbara is almost an hour away.

Let’s talk about Los Olivos first.

The best way to start is to head directly to downtown Los Olivos. Park on Grand Avenue and then just wander wherever you want to go.

The incredible amount of choices of tasting rooms in Los Olivos.

On the Saturday we were there I was amazed how crowded it was with families. I did not realize that it was Los Olivos Day and a whole festival was going on. This is a once-a-year event. However, children and pets are welcome almost everywhere in this area. It is really nice to see this.

If you look at the downtown Los Olivos map you may say, “Hey, there are no vineyards here either!” True, but not all vineyards and wineries have tasting rooms on site. Refer to the refresher course above.

The advantage of a selection of tasting rooms is that you can check out what is available at each of them should you want. You can take suggestions from like minded people. In some cases, the winemaker may be at the tasting room. The disadvantage is that there are too many tasting rooms and not enough time. Although you don’t get the whole winery/vineyard experience, it is an embarrassment of riches.

Go to Los Olivos!

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First stop Tensley Wines

The Marsanne and the Syrah were really standouts. The Thompson vineyard produces delicious wines for a number of wineries.

Next stop was Stolpman.

Stolpman wines were delicious. The sangiovese was a standout for me.

We drank standing around a bar area. It’s fun that way. It is a great way to meet other wine lovers, and really adds to the experience.

On to Holus Bolus.

How can you not love a winery that makes wine called Joy Fantastic?

The wines at Holus Bolus were good, too!

Although we didn’t stand at a bar at Holus Bolus, it was very easy to talk with other wine lovers at the outdoor space. We met two women who were doing, what they referred to as, a Pinot Palooza. Make your wine tasting experience any way you want to at the various wine tasting areas. You should not have to follow the set tasting if you don’t want to. So have fun with it!

Wait, there’s more. We aren’t done for the day yet. On to SAMsARA (not a typo.)

SAMsARA is definitely worth going to for their red wines (in my opinion.)

Very relaxed and informative tasting room, with maps of their vineyards. Just look how small their production is!

Let’s take a moment:

It is interesting that a few of the wineries list the points some of their wines have received. For those in the wine business, they are entitled to feel proud. I, personally, do not care as much. Your goal is to determine whether YOU like it or not.

We did visit one tasting room that gave no wine notes at all. They prided themselves on that. I originally loved that idea, since some wine notes can be a distraction. However, they were so disinterested in everyone who came in, it was awful. They poured the wine and said come back when you want us to pour the next. I am not mentioning the name, because maybe they were having an off day. This was clearly not the experience anywhere else.

You always should feel comfortable in a tasting room, and questions are welcome. The winemakers want to share what they enjoy.

Thankfully our next tasting was fantastic.

Toretti Wines were great!

The 4 wines were put on the bar. Those are what you tasted. Strongly recommended for Pinot Noir lovers. We bought one of the Pinots to take home!

Toretti Family Vineyard was off the beaten path. You had to go through at least one parking lot to find it. It was sort of on a need to know basis. It was recommended by the people at Tensley. Asking what some winemakers recommend is a great way to find hidden gems. A number of locals stopped by when we were there. Meeting fellow wine enthusiasts adds to the tasting.

Just letting you know we didn’t go to all these tasting rooms in one day. The wines and experiences would just blur together.

We stayed in Solvang during our stay in this area. You have to see Solvang to believe it. It is described as the Danish Capital of America. They aren’t kidding. In retrospect, we should have just visited it for the day. Most people do exactly that. There are a large number of European Bakeries. The lines for the pancake houses are something to see.

There are also quite a few wine tasting rooms in Solvang. Unfortunately, the hours they were open were limited for our purposes. If you hung out during the day in Solvang, they would totally be worth visiting.

Buellton is quite popular for wine enthusiasts. This is where the movie Sideways took place. In fact, they have a whole itinerary based on the places visited in the movie. You can click on the blue words whole itinerary to get it should you want. If you were a fan of the movie, you should definitely head here. I was not one of those fans.

However, people I respect, wine-wise, strongly recommended Buellton for its great Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Who am I to say otherwise?

I was very sorry to have missed going to Lompoc. We will definitely go on our next trip. There was just not enough time. The Lompoc Wine Ghetto has over 20 wineries and tasting rooms.

We couldn’t resist going to at least one vineyard, even though we had gone to multiple tasting rooms. Our brunch and wine tasting at Roblar Winery was fantastic. ( See picture above.) I will write about it in more detail when I discuss the not to be missed experiences of eating in a vineyard.

Stay tuned for even more ways to discover the joy and fun of wine.

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