Santa Ynez – Weekend Trip

Good Morning friends!  Happy Tuesday, I hope y’all had a great weekend! Mine started a little rocky (woke up Friday feeling sooo sick, but still went into work since we are short staffed and then had to go to my high school football game to watch my girls cheer) but then got a little better. Robert and I woke up super early Saturday morning and drove up to Santa Ynez (a little past Santa Barbara) for his cousins 30th Birthday Bash.

Our weekend started by waking up at 4:30 and driving 2.5 hours up the coast of California to meet the rest of the family for a 30th Birthday. We arrived at the hotel and got settled in and then at about 10:30am the festivities for the day started. Our transportation included a private bus that took us to each stop and then dropped us off at dinner at the end of the day. The bus was a redone school bus that was super cool!

Our first stop: Babcock Winery

This winery had a super vintage feel to it. Anything in the winery could be purchased including the décor on the walls. Here we had a private tasting and sampled 3 whites and 3 reds.

Whites:

2016 Soulstruck, Grenache Blanc

Unfortunately, I can’t remember the other 2 whites we tried.

Reds:

2016 Pinot Noir “Ocean’s Ghost”

2016 Rita’s Earth Pinot Noir

2016 Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills

To be honest, I wasn’t a huge fan of any of the 6 we tried, but in all fairness I really only like sweet wines and tend to shy away from anything too dry. The birthday girl got her own sample of a sweet wine and it was DELICIOUS! I had to buy a bottle for myself to bring home, it’s the 2014 Late Harvest Pinot Gris “Naughty Little Nectar” .

Second Stop: Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co.

There are 5 locations for the is Brewery, we stopped at the one in Los Olivos. This is where we had lunch which was actually really good. We had the upstairs room all to ourselves with a private bartender. For lunch we had salad, tri-tip, bbq chicken, garlic bread, chili, and a potato salad. I’m not a huge craft beer kinda gal, so I opted for a flight of beers.  My beers included:

Fig Mtn Light, FMB “101” Blonde Ale, Gibraltor, and Hoppy Poppy IPA

Third Stop: Beckmen Vinyards

We got to this stop at about 3:30 in the afternoon and to be honest, everyone was pretty much done. I think that everyone went a little too hard at lunch with the beers! This winery was a little bit different and didn’t offer a group tasting. We sat outside in a gazebo and someone from the winery came out with 6 different types of wines. He explained them to us and then left us to pour our own tasting. I didn’t really feel like this was a good sales tactic and no one from our group bought any wines here. The grounds were nice, and there were some late harvest grapes still on the vines.

Fourth Stop: Maverick Saloon

This was our last stop for the day. We went in for happy hour, then walked a few doors down for a private dinner (I can’t remember the name of the place we had dinner). This is totally a dive bar type place. They have dollar bills hanging from the ceiling that customers can put up themselves. After dinner we came back and there was a live band playing. Since it was the Saturday before Halloween, they were having a costume party!

Sunday morning we packed up, had lunch at Sandbar in Santa Barbara. The mexican food was actually pretty good and the watermelon margaritas were to die for!

I love being able to do quick weekend getaways like this one and would love to be able to go back up and stay the weekend in Solvang (super cute looking Danish town). I hope you all had an amazing weekend. Let me know if you have any questions about anthing I did this weekend; I’m happy to answer anything you might want to know!

XOXO