Trip to Wine Country

Today we went up to the Santa Ynez Valley near Santa Barbara to visit Wine Country. This was our third visit to the area since we got married. We spent our first wedding anniversary in Santa Barbara and toured many of the wineries and vineyards during our stay. On our second trip just over a month later, we were taking Grandma Kristi, Aunty Martha and Uncle Rob there for a day trip. We visited several of the vineyards then, and our final stop was in Los Olivos where many wineries have their tasting rooms lining the main street. On that trip we became members of the Arthur Earl Winery wine club, and have been receiving quarterly shipments from them ever since. This however was a luxury we decided that we should really cut back upon with Ewan's arrival and reduced disposable income. Nonetheless, we decided that before we ended our membership we should utilize our its benefits one last time; free tasting for ourselves and guests at their tasting rooms together with their sister winery Alexander & Wayne, and the 20% member discount on anything we buy.

We were accompanied on our trip by by our good friends Jay and Todd and set off from Pasadena shortly before 9 am. The drive was very good although we probably benefited from the early start, missing the crowds on the 101 freeway. Ewan was a star in the car for his first car trip longer than 1 hour. He stayed awake for the first 20 minutes then broke the rest of the trip into two 1 hour naps with a few minutes awake in between; no stops required.

When we arrived in Los Olivos, it was time for a morning snack for Ewan, but we went the Arthur Earl as soon as he was done to sample the wines. We tried 10 different wines; we particularly liked their Vioginer, Mouverdre and Il Re wines and stocked up. After that, the effects were kicking in a bit so it was lunchtime which we chose to spend at the Fess Parker winery. Jay and Todd were very naughty and treated us to lunch before we headed back up Grand Avenue to sample some other wineries. Next stop was Alexander & Wayne, then Daniel Gehrs, Longoria, and finally Wild Heart. Of these we like Daniel Gehrs the best and picked up a great Zinfandel and a Port. We picked a good day to go, because it was the local Harvest Festival so some wineries were hosting special events.

We did intersperse the booze with a coffee break, during which we took some pictures of Ewan in his Baby Bjorn in addition to a couple in some of the winery gardens. He was a really good boy all day and was the focus of attention of many of the other patrons in the tasting rooms. However we were not allowed in one place because of their strict no under 21 policy!








We ended our day in Solvang, a nearby town which calls itself the Danish capital of the USA. Many of the buildings there are built to look like a Danish town and many of the cafes and restaraunts offer Danish fair. We ate at the Storybook Inn on the reccomendation of the folks at the Wild Heart winery. It was an excellent reccomendaton too with some awesome venison, steak and salmon on the menu. Ewan behaved well until dessert at which point he was ready for bed, and Mom and Dad took it in turns at the table while the other rocked him and sang him songs outside. We had to have a pit-stop in the car before we were ready to drive home, but once fed he slept all of the way back, and it was a quick jump into bed for all of us after a great day out.