Santa Barbara Wine Country – Today is day #3 of our 10-Day Coastal California road trip and we decided to spend the day in Santa Barbara’s wine country.

Sideways Wine Tour Road Map

For those of you who are movie buffs, you will remember that the Oscar-winning movie Sideways was filmed in Santa Barbara wine country and was solely responsible for putting the region on the map and creating a massive interest in the Pinot Noir varietal.

From left: Sandra Oh, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen and Paul Giamatti in SIDEWAYS. Photo Credit: Merie W. Wallace

As we began our ascent into the Santa Ynez Mountains, on Highway 154, we pulled over at a scenic outlook to snap a photograph of our motley crew.  From left to right:  Roaming Boomers David & Carol Porter, Karen Schroeder, Bob Schroeder.

As we began our descent into the wine region, I was unprepared for the staggering beauty we would find.

Now, we’re not complete movie dorks, so we didn’t religiously follow the Sideways movie trail.  Nonetheless,  we did stop to have lunch at the Los Olivos Cafe where Miles, Jack, Maya, and Stephanie enjoyed a great meal and several bottles of exquisite wine.

Sideways Movie Still: Sandra Oh and Thomas Hayden Church

We enjoyed a marvelous lunch of Curried Chicken Salad, while the Schroeder’s beamed as they enjoyed a presentation of Heirloom Tomatoes.

Here is our one and only Sideways movie shot at the Los Olivos Cafe’s wine tasting bar.

After lunch, we moseyed deeper into the wine country until we reached the Fess Parker Winery.

Baby boomers will recall Fess Parker as the star of the television show:  Davy Crockett.

Come on, you know the lyrics, sing along with me:

“Born on a mountain top in Tennessee,
Greenest state in the land of the free.
Raised in the woods so’s he knew every tree,
Killed him a bear when he was only three.
Davy, Davy Crockett King of the Wild Frontier.”

It took several hours for us to get that song out of our heads.

Here is a photograph of Carol and Bob modeling Davy Crockett coonskin hats.

It may look as though they had been tasting a little too much wine, but we had only one glass of wine each back in Los Olivos.  Really!  It’s true!

I can’t begin to explain the silly looks on their faces.  I suppose I would have a silly look on my face too, if I were asked to model a coonskin cap.

Modeling Coonskin Caps at the Fess Parker Winery

Next on our trip, we continued deeper into Santa Barbara wine country until we reached the Foxen Winery in Santa Maria.

Here’s a shot of Carol and Karen with the Foxen Winery staff after enjoying a nice flight of red wines.

OK!  It was time to start working our way back towards Santa Barbara, but first we had to make a stop in the magical town of Solvang.

Solvang is Danish for “sunny fields”.  This town totally looks like it was picked out of Disney World’s Epcot World Showplace and plucked down here in the Santa Barbara wine region.

While in the bustling little town of Solvang we happened to catch the local farmer’s market.

Cool!  We bought fresh organic strawberries, cheeses, raspberries, oranges, tomatoes, bread, and even an apple-rhubarb pie.  What a fabulous dinner we had from this market, later in the evening.

Here’s Carol and Karen buying some cheese from a local merchant.

The bright colors of these flowers also caught my attention from the market.

Well, that was our day in the Santa Barbara Wine Country.

It was a wonderful day spent in a wonderful place with great friends.

We highly recommend it!