More Wine Tasting

We are still in Buellton, California and will be here for another week before heading back to Southern California for Christmas.  Even though this is one of the most expensive RV parks we have ever stayed in we decided to stay another week as the area is beautiful and there are some things we want to do.

Since my last posting we traveled to Goleta which is about 20 miles south of us to meet up with Fran’s cousin.  We spent the afternoon with her and had a great time.  It also gave us the chance to check out a couple of state parks we may stop at in January when we work our way back north in California.  We really liked El Capitan State Park as they had a few really nice ocean view sites.  The drawback is there are no hook-ups and no reservations.  The hook-ups are not a problem for us for a few days and hopefully in January during the week it will not be a problem to get a site for a couple of nights.

When we resided in Naperville we belong to a wine group with 6 other couples.  We met about 6 times a year and had a great time tasting wines.  This past weekend was the annual Christmas tasting, which is always one of the special events for the group.  Obviously we missed it but were with our friends in spirit and they were kind enough to call us at 2:30am (central time) to tell us how much this missed us!  So, since we missed the Christmas tasting we have been continuing our wine tasting activities in this area and have not been disappointed.

In the last posting I mentioned our first outing in tasting.  Yesterday and today we did some additional exploring.   On Tuesday we went to Los Olivos which is about 10 miles from here. This is a quaint little town about two blocks long that has a few restaurants, a few businesses and many, many tasting rooms.  So, you park your car and just walk the town and taste wines!  What could be better.

Many of the tasting rooms were not open during the week so we ended up doing two and then having lunch (outdoors!!!!).   We tasted at Daniel Gehrs, www.danielgehrswines.com.  Not that impressed with the wines but had a great time with the person serving us.

We had a free tasting card for Epiphany Winery, which was next door, so we went there,http://www.epiphanycellars.com/. Their wines were good and we were impressed with their Rousanne (a white wine). 

Two tastings was enough for us as each allowed us to taste more than was on the list, but neither waived the tasting fee for a purchase.  So, lunch was in order.  We ended up at a great sandwich place with outdoor tables, Panino’s, http://paninorestaurants.com/.  It was a very nice fall day.

Today we decided to drive to Lompoc which is about 20 miles west of us.  On the way we took one road to stop at Sanford winery, www.sanfordwinery.com.  This is a wine we had tried a few years ago on a recommendation and were very pleased with it.  The tasting was outstanding!  The problem is their wines are pretty expensive, for our tastes ($40 to $70).  Fortunately the server was very generous in the pours and allowed us to taste other wines not on the list.  After visiting Lompoc we took Highway 246 back into Buellton and stopped at two wineries that were next to each other.  The first was Babcock, www.babcockwinery.com.  Their wines were very good, but again the price was a little steep.  The winery next door was Melville, www.melvillewinery.com.  This winery had great wines and their price point was much better, $20 to $40.  We had a great time at this winery.  Again, neither Babcock or Melville waived the tasting fee for a purchase.  This is a real issue with me!

Since we are here for a another week I am sure we will do more wine tasting.  This is a beautiful area and the wines are great.

To our wine group friends.  You have to make this a trip for the group.  You could stay in Solvang and then do wine tasting in the area. There are many great restaurants and many wines to taste. Plus, Santa Barbara is only 30 miles away.  We are available most of January and February if you would like to escape the Chicago winter.