Getting Crazy in Wine Country

It's been a fun couple days. Ok, well, perhaps except for yesterday when I was stuck at jury duty all day and nearly ended up on a three-week civil trial regarding law malpractice. Snore.

This past weekend was S and mine's one year anniversary. On Friday night, he whipped us up a delicious meal of paella, mushroom caps stuffed with mushrooms and pancetta, and a light salad. Yum. We also shared a fabulous French wine while watching Sideways, a tongue-in-cheek film about the snobbiness of wine culture and how what happens in wine country stays in wine country.

On Saturday, we woke up early, piled into the car with all of the camping equipment, and headed off for Santa Barbara, or to be more specific, Cachuma Lake. We arrived in time to get a great spot (or, what we thought was a great spot until around 5 am when drunken campers started wandering through our site on the way to the bathroom which resulted in a completely freaked out Hollywood.) and made a savory lunch of sandwiches, brie, hummus, and blackberries. Mmm. Then, we hit the wineries.


First was Zaca Mesa, a quaint little winery that holds its tastings inside a farmhouse. I definitely got a few looks because of the dress I was wearing (hey, gotta dress up for special occassions, right?) but the wines were nice. Much better than those at Firestone, where we ventured next.

Firestone, from what I gathered, is pretty much the McDonalds of wine. Ok, it's not that bad, but it's definitely corporate (It was built by the Firestone tire guys after all) and they have it down to a science. We got a free tour of the winery and got to check out how they make the wine as well as the oak barrels they store it in. These are the large vats for the white wine.


Naturally, I asked plenty of questions, none of which I received satisfactory answers to, but perhaps I will search the answers out at a later time. The one I'm most curious about (though by no means obsessing over) is: If you're in the same area, why does wine made from one set of grapes (say merlot) give you a much different taste than another winery's stock also made from merlot grapes?

However, though the woman giving the tour was not the nicest I've yet to encounter, the woman giving us the tasting was very pleasant, and S surprised me with a bottle of their Sauvingon Blanc clone on the way out. :)

Before heading back to camp, we visited Solvang, the cute little Norwegian-style town nearby. After browsing the local Christmas shop (where I wanted to purchase some ornament gifts but ended up only with an unbelievably cute pufferfish for my own tree), we embarked on one more wine tasting. I was already quite tipsy by this time, but I wasn't driving and the wine store had olives you could taste with the wines. And boy, do I love olives.


Finally, after the last tasting, of which S treated me to another bottle of wine and some fabulous olives stuffed with jalepeno and blue cheese, we went back and made tacos for dinner. I fell asleep pretty early as it was chilly and I really wanted to cozy up inside the sleeping bag.

The next day we went on a short hike to a lovely little waterfall just outside Solvang and fed ostriches and stared at emus at an Ostrich farm in the area. They're crazy-looking up close but quite cute, in an ugly sort of way. There is plenty of land there for them where they can run free. On the way back from the hike, S and snapped some photos in the middle of a wheat field and he let me drive stick until we reached the highway. I must say, I think I did a nice job.

On the way home, we stopped off for one more drink at Saints and Sinners, a favorite watering hole of ours, and sipped on maragaritas and beers during their Heavy Metal happy hour. We also got $1 sharpie tattoos from one of the other barflies to support their friend's chemo. I had the words "knit" and "purl" inscribed on my wrists, and S had, well, take a look:


Oh, and, for the record, Iron Man was awesome.