Great Food Follows Great Wine

Last weekend was the Santa Barbara County Vintner's Festival with wine tasting, gourmet food samples from local chefs and live music. Touring & Tasting was there handing out free magazines and flyers for our huge warehouse wine sale this Saturday.

The wine biz in Santa Barbara County generates half a billion dollars a year. Though the region is among the oldest wine growing regions in the country, pre-dating Napa Valley, the explosive growth and world-wide recognition of Santa Barbara County wine has only happened in the last 30 years. Wine production began in the 1700s as Spanish mission builders, like Padre Serra at the Santa Barbara Mission, planted grape cuttings from Mexico to create wine for their own use. Wine continued to be produced just for local consumption for the next three hundred years or so, with at least one exception (from the Santa Barbara County Vintner's Association, along with an historical tidbit): "In 1884, Justinian Caire imported grape slips from France and planted a 150-acre vineyard on Santa Cruz Island. His prize-winning wines were shipped to San Francisco for bottling. A grapevine planted in 1842 on a farm in Carpinteria grew to monstrous proportions. In fifty years, it had a trunk measuring nine feet around, an arbor covering two acres and an annual yield of ten tons of grapes!" (the average wine grape vine produces about 12 lbs.) Though winemakers worked in obscurity, they were constantly refining their techniques and improving their wines. In the 1960s, the esteemed agricultural department at UC Davis tested the terroir of the Central Valley and declared it ideal for viniculture. A primary factor is the Transverse Ranges which run east/west rather than north/south like the Sierra Nevadas. Because the Transverse Ranges (the Santa Ynez Mountains, the San Rafael Mountains and the Sierra Madre in Santa Barbara county) run parallel to the coastal wind, they funnel cooler air and fog from the ocean inland, allowing more "hang time" for the grapes to develop flavor and acidity to balance sweetness. In the hot Central Valley of California, grapes ripen fast and can develop a brix level that is too high, creating excess sweetness or  alcohol content and, in some cases, hindering fermentation due to the excess sugar (die-off of the yeast). Often the flavors don't develop fully, which is why most Central Coast wine production is for the bulk market.

Some of the early vineyards and wineries in Santa Barbara County were Rancho Sisquoc, Edna Valley Vineyards (precursor to Lucas & Lewellen), Brander Vineyard, and Firestone. A turning point came with the Paris tasting of 1976 when two northern California wines unexpectedly won over exalted wines like Château Haut-Brion and Château Mouton Rothschild. Suddenly, California wines were center stage and Santa Barbara wines began to capture the attention they deserved. Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Sauvignon Blanc are among the varietals that have won international medals, 90+ point scores and "best of class" awards. The majority of the 21,000 acres and 110+ wineries in Santa Barbara County are family owned and operated and their hard work has transformed the Santa Ynez Valley into a bustling international destination, helped in no small part by the 2004 movie "Sideways", and has livened the city of Santa Barbara with great restaurants and high-quality, affordable wine lists. Great food follows great wine! I haven't tried many of the wines poured at the Santa Barbara County Vintner's Festival (see list of wineries), but one finds many recognizable names from the highly acclaimed Sea Smoke Cellars and Jaffurs Wine Cellars to popular by-the-glass local favorites like the Qupé Syrah and Sunstone Merlot.