WINE TASTING AT SANTA BARBARA WINERY

Tue, Aug 21 - It's Tuesday and that means the Santa Barbara Farmers' Market downtown this afternoon. We have been very pleased with our purchases at the Market and decided to go again this afternoon (well, I decided we would go)! The Market does not open until 4 o'clock, so we drove down early enough to do something else before the Market.

Today, I wanted to do a little Wine Tasting! There are so many Vineyards and Wineries in Santa Barbara and the surrounding area that you can't begin to count them all!! How to choose just one??!! I decided we would go to the Santa Barbara Winery downtown because it had some interesting history. Santa Barbara Winery was the first commercial winery to open in Santa Barbara County post-prohibition, in 1962. Not only that, their weekday Wine Tastings were only $5/pp, PLUS we could keep the glasses!!

The first wine we tasted was 2010 Riesling which I don't usually care for because it's too sweet. This was dry and perfect. At first I thought it was a rip-off because our server only gave us less than a jigger of wine in the bottom of our rather large wine glass! But after tasting seven wines, I discovered that amount was quite enough!!

I loved the barrels stacked in the tasting room!

Our server, Jamie, served us the six wines on the wine list: Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Nebbiolo (using grapes from Italy), and Grenache. Ken happened to mention that he liked a Rose', so Jamie added a tasting of their Rose' of Syrah 2011. We didn't find a wine we didn't like!!

Jamie was very knowledgeable and always wore a big smile!


After a delightful time tasting wine at Santa Barbara Winery, we went shopping at the Farmer's Market and Von's, and the Gas Station!!

As we were driving into Rancho Oso, we caught a glimpse of a nice little family!! These are about the first deer we have seen since arriving! And I was thrilled!!

Later, after washing our new wine glasses and hanging them in our wine rack, I told Ken we would have to go again next Tuesday so we could have a set of four Santa Barbara Winery wine glasses!!