My wife and I have just returned from an all too short, but well-deserved long weekend / vacation. I have a very good friend and co-worker who has a home in the Santa Ynez Valley who was gracious enough to rent us her house for a few days for a getaway.
The Santa Ynez Valley, and it's quaint towns such as Los Alamos, Solvang, Santa Ynez, Los Olivos, Buellton, and some others are famously known for their great vineyards. Not to be confused with the Napa Valley, my friend Kathryn says "Napa makes auto parts. Santa Ynez makes great wine!" This statement couldn't be closer to the truth.
The area is also known quite well as the setting for the movie Sideways. I will admit, it's on my list of favorite all time movies - and I'm somewhat related to one of the writers (who's worked with Alexander Payne on other movies - I've never met him, but my dad knows his dad, etc, etc...), but the locals seem to have a love / hate relationship with it. I found that while out there, being able to say we were staying at a local friend's house got us much further than saying "oh, we just loved the movie and had to come out!" which, believe it or not, I heard a lot. In fact, when we decided to go out, I didn't even realize the association with the movie until after I had booked tickets, all on our friend's claims of how much she loves living there.
On our trip there, we hit a lot of great spots. After rolling in late at night in our bitchin' Chevy HHR (see below), we headed down to the little town of Solvang the next morning. I'll spare you all the pictures of a picturesque (although beautiful and quaint) Danish town and cut right to the chase. They have a great vintage motorcycle museum there. The highlight (for me) was this pristine 1949 Vincent HRD Black Lightning, one of 30 made. This one was a two time world record setter. The first bike pre-1950 to ever top 150mph, and later supercharged, and the first to surpass 180mph. Beautiful. That's all I can say.
Crap HHR:
Awesome Vincent: (note the pic of Rollie Free on the wall - this is the same model bike in that picture; also note the other Vincent in the background, but not the only other in the place)
The museum was great, and I should be able to post an entire gallery soon.
After that, we spent an afternoon wine-tasting in the Valley, and it was wonderful. Highlights were Foxen, Fess Parker, and Curtis. Foxen was delightful. A laid back place, with great people. Bobby, who was pouring was a friend of a friend and treated us very well.
Fess Parker, known for that famous "dump bucket" scene in Sideways was all that I expected it to be. Need I say more? Ok, I will. Beautiful winery, but skip it if you want to avoid the tourists. Our friend told us the same thing about Curtis, but we decided to go anyway. As it turns out, it was close to closing time, and was very quiet. We had a nice conversation with some locals and enjoyed ourselves. The tasting was just OK, but the person pouring gave us a taste of their Cabernet / Syrah blend normally reserved for wine club members. I was pleasantly surprised, and we ended up buying a bottle.
The next morning, we went up to visit the Hearst Castle. Quite the place, and I was surprisingly impressed. Granted, it's not like anything you'd see in Europe, but the views alone set it apart from anything else I've eve experienced.
(me, looking as chipper as I can on an early morning after wine tasting the day before)
(this is the Neptune Pool, which as it turns out, is impossible to take a bad picture of)
Dinner that night was at the all-too-popular Hitching Post II restaurant, made famous by said movie, Sideways. I ate a ridiculous amount - they have a combo of roast duck and filet mignon. And their house wines are superb - the Pinot Noir they're known so well for, and the Syrah as well. (The Syrah was, in my opinion, spectacular).
For proof, I present to you:
The next day, we wound up in Santa Barbara, and headed out on a whale watching cruise. If you get the chance, I highly recommend the Condor Express. Almost immediatly after heading out, we caught up with three humpback whales and were able to follow them for a couple of hours. And closely, I might say. An absoulutely incredible experience. A word of advice for photographers - know what you're doing. It's bright out there. I was shooting at ISO 200, F/22 and god knows what speed, 125 -250, and focused to infinity with a manual focus 135mm lens. Not easy. But worth the effort. You should see the full size pics.
We ended the afternoon in Santa Barbara with a great lunch at a local seafood place, Brophy Brothers, followed by long walk on the wharf, followed by another lunch at a local sushi place. Hey, we're on vacation. We're allowed to eat two lunches.
At some point - maybe that day, maybe another, I can't be sure - we made it into Los Olivos and stopped at Global Gardens so Lindsay could do an olive oil tasting, which she thoroughly enoyed. We also stopped at the new tasting room for Stolpman Vineyards. This was easily the best tasting of the trip - if you get the chance, TRY IT!! I recognized their L'Avion and will be going out shortly to try to find it again here in KC.
The rest of the trip, we slowed down a bit. We had the obligitory In-N-Out Burger. Yes, indeed, I walked in knowing fully well that I was planning on eating until the point right up until I felt sick. And then stopping. And thinking about more. But ultimately deciding to not sour the experience.
We had a lot more touring of great wineries. A tale of caution: avoid Roblar. They look nice, they look expensive (they ARE expensive), but looks can be deceiving. By their third wine in the tasting, their Pinot Noir, I nearly hurled. The lady pouring told us it was "very young, very fruity" and like a "jolly rancher candy." How right she was. And they have the audacity to charge $40-some per bottle. I'm still trying to forget the taste.
However, we salvaged the day. We ended up at the beautiful Rusack Winery and had a lovely tasting (there might have been one or two in between). And to top it all off, we made it back without the dreaded swine flu, which seems to have created a pandemic while we were in flight there - and makes me wonder about the very, very sick Mexican woman behind us on the plane there. We also took a voluntary "bump" flight which got us home at the same time, but via First Class and a $300 travel voucher each.
All in all, a great way to kick off the summer. :)