The "Sideways" movie/book setting is alive and well here in the Santa Ynez valley. We ate at the Los Olivos Cafe and it looks like it did in the movie. We both had the pot roast special which apparently is one of the dishes served at dinner to the cast of the movie. We didn't drink any merlot and we didn't drink and dial while we were there.
This area is truly spectacular! Check out some of these pictures. I've never been anywhere quite like this. I did ride my motorcycle through this area back in 2001 but I didn't stop for long.
Highlights of today's adventures included a full tour of Firestone's vinyard, tastes at Fess Parker, Zaca Mesa and Foxen. We tried to find Rancho Sisquoc... but I'm afraid they've packed up (or we didn't try hard enough).
Lunch was great. We picked up some capicola, baguette, stawberries and Red Dragon Welsh cheddar from the Los Olivos Grocery and ate on Fess Parker's Estate. We enjoyed a Fess Parker 2006 Clone 115 which is velvety smooth! They don't ship it out of state, naturally. As I feared, the best stuff is not going to be available at home.
You forgot to mention that we detoured for more than an hour in the morning looking for the grocery. In the end we saw some terrific views - just incredible. However Nuvi (Garmin) did us wrong. The grocery was only 2 minutes from the Inn but we didn't figure out we were going the wrong way until about 30-40 minutes had passed. Oh well. Some things we learned on the tour: why they put nets over the vines - to keep the birds out, why they train the vines to only hold the grapes at the bottom - so it's easier to harvest, why some vines are trained not to hang over the grapes - so grapes mature faster and some vines are trained to hang over the grapes to slow down the grape maturity process. That way all grape varietals are ready to harvest at the same time. The difference in French and American Oak barrels - American is more smoky because it is dried out in a kiln versus French Oaks which are allowed to dry naturally in the elements. All very interesting. Unfortunately the wine at that particular vineyard (Firestone - yes same family as Andrew Firestone but he doesn't work there) was not so good.
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