TMac's Page: 2007

If you've seen the movie Sideways, then you may recognize some of the places we visited on our wine tasting weekend in the Santa Ynez Valley. We did a two-day trip and had a great time with good wines, food and company. We renamed each of the wineries that we visited and I thought I'd share these with you here, so maybe you can get some smiles out of them too. I'll also give my wine recommendations from this trip. As a note on this area, many of the wines here are French style wines because these grapes grow very well in this region as they do in France. We sampled a lot of Pinot Noirs, which are usually not my favorites, but were quite good from this region. The stronger Cabernets that Scott and I usually enjoy were not very good in this region, but the stronger Syrahs were very nice.

- Bridlewood (Dualing Horses) was the first winery that we visited and I wasn't overly impressed with any of the wines there.
- Rusack (Flowery Diamond) had a Pinot Noir (Santa Barbara County) that had a food flavor taste to it. :D
- Rideau (A Cajun Winery) had a wine called a Lagniappe Red (2005) that I really enjoyed. However, it was pretty pricey, so we didn't get any. The owner of this winery is from New Orleans and apparently they have certain days where she cooks food for everyone who comes to taste - too bad we missed out on that!
- Buttonwood (Retard or Doodle) had a very nice and intelligent guy named Bobby who served us some of our wines. I wasn't a fan of the whites here or even most of the reds, but they had a red Bordeaux called Trevin (2002) that we liked a lot. This is a mixture of their other 3 reds and this wine definitely shows some synergy (thanks, Collen!) The Cabernet Franc that was 35% of this mixture was renamed Tombstone Delight with a hint of Graveyard by us due to the earthyness (this was close to the end of our first day, by the way). They also had a 2003 Hawk Red that got a smiley based on my rating system. :)
- Kalyra (Malaria) wasn't one of our favorites. For one thing, the wine is all grown, made and bottled in Australia and then brought over here, so it didn't quite fit in with the area tastes that we were experiencing.
- Sunstone (Stoned sun) was our last winery of the first day and by far our favorite for this day. They had a very nice 2004 Syrah SBC and an even better 2005 Rapsodie du Soleil. The Rapsodie was 89% of the before-mentioned Syrah, but was even better with some Grenache, Mourvedre and Viognier added in. This winery had a great feel, as well as a guy with a guitar singing outside with a beautiful voice.

For dinner on the first night, we visited the Hitching Post, which was a favorite hangout in the movie Sideways. They are known for their steaks and steaks we did have! You can see some pictures here, including one very large piece of meat on the grill, but unfortunately this one didn't come to our table. We had a very nice time at this restaurant and found a very interesting hair do! I think a couple of names were thrown around for him, including Unicorn and Hair Island. There was a nice group of people at the table next to us making faces in our pictures, so I decided to take a picture of them and include on the blog because they were part of our experience! The girl in the middle on the left, we decided looked like Tina Fey and the guy in the middle on the right looked like our friend Alex. We named the guys Manboobs (I'm forgetting why now). Hi guys! Hope you enjoyed your trip as much as we did!

We didn't visit as many wineries on the second day, but they were all high quality for sure.
- Fess Parker (Davey Crockett) had some very nice wines, including a 2005 Chardonnay "American Tradition Reserve" that we liked a lot. We're not usually big fans of white wine, but this one was very nice - not too sweet. There were a couple of Pinot Noirs, the "Santa Barbara County" one we didn't really like, but the 2005 "American Tradition Reserve one was very good. Scott liked this one the most, but I liked even better the 2004 "The Big Easy" Syrah. It is named this because of its big dense taste, which I enjoyed very much. Although it was very dense, it wasn't overly tannony and finished quite well. They also had a very nice Syrah called "Rodney's Vinyard". Many smileys on this winery's sheet! :D
- Zaca Mesa (Storm Fields) was recommended to us by friends before going and we appreciated the recommendation. This winery just qualified for sustainable status, which means that they are growing in a more environmentally friendly way. They had a 2005 Roussanne, which was a white wine that we enjoyed very much. I guess Alex and Kris brought one to our Thanksgiving gathering because it went so well with turkey, but I missed out on that on Thanksgiving. We bought a bottle, though so I'll have to make another turkey just to enjoy this wine with! They also had a 2004 Estate Z Three, which is a blend of Syrah, Moervedre and Grenache that was excellent.
- Foxen (Rusty Anchor) was a cute winery right off the road and with a nice, rustic feel, but although our friends enjoyed the wine here a lot, we didn't love any of it.

- Our last winery was by far our favorite over the two days. Andrew Murray Vineyards usually just tastes their wines at a tasting room in town, but they had a special open house while we were there out in their wine warehouse with a lot of wine to taste, great food to munch on and live music that I really loved. And the best part... is that Andrew Murray was one of the people pouring our wine and answering our questions! He was incredibly nice and knew a lot about wine and impressed us all. He wasn't at all cocky and even allowed our group to go back and take a picture with him. I give this winery 5 stars! :D All of the wines here were extremely good, including the many Syrahs that we tasted. I think the best value was the 2005 Central Coast Syrah. For only $16, this had a lot of taste. Probably our other favorite was the 2005 Brave Oak Syrah. There was one extra not on the tasting list that was absolutely awesome and even rocked Josh's world, as he said. Andrew Murray was happy to hear this one, though a little shocked by the wording. :D This one was called a Watch Hill Syrah if I'm remembering correctly and it was probably on of the best ones we tasted on the whole trip.

We also visited the town of Solvang, which is designed like a little Danish town. We had a nice breakfast and I got a goofy picture with a Danish shoe. :D