Santa Barbara

I haven’t been very good about posting, but I don’t think anyone has noticed…

Our trip to Santa Barbara wasn’t what I had hoped for, for many reasons, and while I hate to be negative, I have to say I was not impressed with the few wineries we went to. Now, we are not wine experts by any means, but we have been wine tasting MANY times, to Paso Robles, Sonoma, Temecula and Santa Barbara, so we kind of know the drill- if you know what I mean....

Our first stop was Brander- they are known for there whites (which we don’t drink). We didn’t know that little bit of information or we wouldn’t have stopped, because the gal pouring the wines was so uninterested in talking to us. Maybe because we didn’t want to drink her white wine? They had two reds that we tasted.

Then we thought it would be fun to stop at an Olive Oil tasting directly across the street from Brander. We drove in, got out and waited & waited & waited. Their dog greeted us, but no humans, so we left.

Then we went to Roblar- that was another waste…the girl pouring was kind of rude and their prices on wine were absolutely ridiculous, especially since the Pinot Noir that was not very good was $48.00. The pourer couldn’t figure out that we wanted to taste only the red (which they had 3) and we paid for 7 tastes at $15.00 a pop, I think. We asked if we could each have a glass and taste the 3 reds and we would actually have 1 taste left, but she thought she couldn’t do that. She ended up saying she could, but not without some irritation from her.

We ended at Bridlewood. The gal pouring was SO nice, she made up for the horrible experiences at the other two. The grounds at Bridlewood are beautiful- they have a horse drawn carriage that takes people on tour of the grounds. And their wines were wonderful. We picnicked on their grass- nice way to end the day….

Not sure we would ever plan a trip back to Santa Barbara….