Right Side Up

I took a three-day weekend and headed up to the Santa Ynez Valley for some quality wine tasting and a relaxing time at a nice B&B with JP this past weekend. We were set to leave at lunchtime on Friday, hit a winery or two, then check-in at the Santa Ynez Inn for the weekend.

As happens with the best-laid plans, JP's flight from Tokyo was delayed, then the flight from San Francisco to Santa Barbara cancelled. The poor guy had to fly in to Orange County (a few hours south) and finally arrived by limo in Oak View around 8:30 pm. I don't think a limo from Orange County has ever show its headlights in Oak View and the driver even said, "I didn't know people in California lived like this". Must have been the goats. Or the trailer. Either way, we ended up arriving in Santa Ynez around 10:00, hit the remote on the fireplace, donned our comfy robes and slippers, ordered some wine and room service, and settled in to our room.

I have traveled a bit, even stayed in places as nice as the Four Seasons, but this B&B takes the cake. They only have 14 rooms and service is their thing. The room had a fireplace, jacuzzi, and private garden patio. If you pick up the phone for something they deliver it within a few minutes. Needless to say, if you are looking for a nice, romantic weekend in the wine country and have about $370 per night to spare, I highly recommend the Santa Ynez Inn. I also recommend skipping their restaurant and walking the few blocks to the Red Barn - yes, it looks like a red barn but it has excellent food and service and is filled with colorful locals.

Back to the point of this post, if there is one. There was only one winery I really wanted to make sure to go to, Sanford Winery. It generally has great pinot noir and only has 5 or 6 people in the tasting room at any given time. The owners are nice, down-to-earth folks and I always buy a case of wine from them when I'm there. The last time I was there I talked straw bale houses with the owner for a good half hour while playing with his baby turtles. Not so this trip.

You see, Sanford was featured in the movie Sideways, and is now on everyone's radar. That's good for Sanford, but bad for it's old, faithful customers. Not that my case a year makes or breaks them, but it is nice to feel special every now and again.

We pulled up to Sanford to find the parking lot full of rental cars, tour buses and limos, usually seen mostly at the bigger wineries like Firestone and Fess Parker. Apparantly, the tour companies are wisely capitalizing on the movie and have created things like the Sideways Wine Tour. Who can blame them?

One of the problems is that Sanford has a small tasting room, with only a bit of overflow outside. The staff admitted that they didn't even have enough glasses to supply all the recent visitors and that they had gone from 50-100 visitors per weekend day to 300+ pretty much overnight. They only had four wines available for tasting, two of which were sold out. Our fellow tasters were taking pictures of Chris, the tasting room manager featured in the movie, and talking non-stop about the movie, rather than the wine. I was becoming disenchanted with the ambience and, knowing I don't make it up there often and that their pinot is consistently the best in the valley, I went inside to buy my usual case. Imagine my surprise when I learned that they were now charging $50 per bottle for the previously $22-28 per bottle pinot, and no longer offering discounts on a case! I can understand cashing in when you can, but this is the first time Sanford's pinot left a bad taste in my mouth. I reluctantly bought a $50 bottle of pinot and we were on our way. It was good, but a sommelier I am not and $50 for a bottle of wine still seem like a lot - especially when you consider the fact that I store my wine in the out of service dishwasher.

Fortunately, we went in search of a nice, light German white and ended up at Koehler Winery, a place niether of us had been. Sure, there was one tour bus out front but they had wisely made a separate tasting area for tour groups. We were able to sidle right up to the ubercool metal bar and begin tasting the nine wines they had for the day. We even got a 10th tasting of a reserve Riesling not usually offered at tastings. The hostesses were nice and knowledgeable, the wine very good, especially the cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir, and the prices excellent - scandalously so on cases. We ended up leaving with more than two cases of wine and a determination to come back. The lady at Koehler admitted that many of the local wineries were raising prices due to the popularity of Sideways but said Koehler wanted to stay true to its customers and attract new folks so it was doing the opposite - offering excellent wines at a discount. Seems like Koehler has its head on straight.