A sip of Santa Ynez: North of Santa Barbara, find superb food, charming small towns-and some grand wines - Santa Ynez Valley, California

Sunset, April, 2002 by Matthew Jaffe

Near the baptismal font at Old Mission Santa Ines, a small landscape painting portrays a valley that looks much as the Santa Ynez Valley would have when this mission was built some 200 years ago. Lines of mountains drop down to rolling foothills. A bright sun lights a river shimmering gold. The painting seems to mirror the classic California landscape that endures in this valley just over the mountains from Santa Barbara. Or, to a modern visitor, it could easily be a wine label, invoking as it does a valley that has become one of the world's top wine regions.

Today, the Santa Ynez Valley produces a diverse range of superb varietal wines, including Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Syrah. With the wines have come other sophisticated pleasures. Once mainly ranch country, the valley now supports some great restaurants and charming country inns. Yet it hasn't forgotten its cowboy past.

The tasting room experience here remains relaxed, where winemakers often do the pouring and are eager to talk with you about the basics of Santa Barbara County's varietals or the latest Syrah clones. And when you have enjoyed your wine, there is always the country itself. In spring, the hills shine an almost Irish green; patches of California poppies glow brilliant yellow orange. Above the hills rise high purple mountains; below, the valley's undulating contours are outlined by the white fences of horse farms and rows of vineyard grapes. Small towns--Los Olivos, Ballard, Solvang, Santa Ynez--retain a powerful, unhurried charm.

"The draw of this place is its simplicity," says Jim Fiolek, vice president of Zaca Mesa Winery, as he looks out at the lengthening shadows of the oak trees. "You get one harvest a year, and you're inexorably moved into that rhythm. There's an expansion of time here. It's just a great place to watch a day go by."

Natural-born wine country

Wine grape cultivation has a long history in the Santa Ynez Valley, dating back to the sacramental wines of the Mission era. But the region's modern winemaking success began only in 1964, when a vineyard was planted near the current site of the Byron Vineyard & Winery. Farmers and ranchers continued to experiment with grapes; then, in the early 1970s, winemaker Pierre Lafond planted 65 acres north of the Santa Ynez River for his Santa Barbara winery. And Richard Sanford and Michael Benedict planted a Pinot Noir vineyard nearby with the intent of making their own wine rather than selling their crop to outside wineries.

Today one of the valley's best-known wine figures, Sanford arrived here after serving in Vietnam. To speed his reacclimation, he wanted to work on the land, combining a longtime interest in wine with his background as a geography major from the University of California at Berkeley. In looking at the climatic and soil studies data, he determined that conditions were ideal in northern Santa Barbara County for wine production.

Not that everyone in the valley agreed with him. "Farmers told me that grapes just wouldn't grow here," he recalls.

Those farmers were wrong. Santa Barbara County proved well suited to a wide range of grape varieties--in large part because the county's valleys tend to run in an east-west direction. During summer, for every mile traveled inland from the ocean, the temperature rises 1[degrees]. But warm inland weather also pulls in coastal fog. That means that the more westerly stretches of the wine region can support cool-temperature grapes, such as Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, while a relatively short distance away, the eastern edges of the valleys nurture grapes that demand warm days and cool nights--Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Merlot.

In 1976, Sanford and his partner achieved remarkable success with their Pinot Noir. "To have produced a wine that was significant in the world of Pinot Noir was extremely satisfying," Sanford says. The Sanford & Benedict Pinot Noir became the first cult wine made in the county and was much sought after by collectors.

Today the Santa Ynez Valley (and two adjoining appellations, the Santa Maria Valley and the Santa Rita Hills) contain 60 wineries that generate more than $360 million in revenue. The region's reputation rests with its winemakers' focus on quality rather than high production. "Some of our big wineries are boutique wineries. So I guess we're almost a garage winery," says David Thompson, co-owner of Bedford Thompson Winery & Vineyard, which produces 6,000 cases per year in the Los Alamos Valley.

Where passion and vision meet

Most of the region's winemakers arrived here when it was still a viticultural frontier. They found more freedom than they might have in more established regions. Personal vision and passion became engrained in the local wine culture.

Richard Sanford is devoted to Taoism and to organic farming. At his La Rinconada Vineyard, the spring water used on the vineyards pours out of the mouth of a statue of Bacchus, the wine god, then flows over a yin-yang symbol before reaching the grapes. Now Sanford is constructing a winery facility using handmade adobe bricks, local stone, and old-growth Douglas fir salvaged from a pair of Northwest sawmills. The winery features an elaborate lift system intended to limit the bruising of the relatively thin-skinned Pinot Noir grapes during the production process.