Wine Treks with Dan Berger: Santa Ynez

In the late 1970s, visitors to the edge of the Santa Ynez Valley, a half-hour's drive north of the city of Santa Barbara, would have seen nothing but brushland fronting Highway 101.

Today not much has changed — unless you know where to look.

Well back of the tan, dried grass, up one of the fingers of east-west canyons that define the Santa Ynez Valley, after a two-mile drive, visitors who once saw nothing now see the vines that in the last 25 years have marked the greatness of this area as a wine paradise.

It wasn't until A. Brooks Firestone, heir to the tire and rubber fortune that bear the family name, planted vines here nearly 30 years ago and experimented with a wide variety of grapes that Santa Barbara County gained fame as a wine region.

And that fame took a long while to cultivate since the American consumer wasn't prepared to immediately dismiss one of its cherished myths: that the Napa Valley makes the best wine in the United States and, by contrast, no one else makes anything worth drinking.

These days, however, there are people who feel that the best Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are products of Santa Barbara. It is a vast region only partially planted with grapes, and ripe for touring with the proper spirit in mind.

That spirit includes a healthy dose of skepticism for the traditional flavors in wine. For among the fine wines here are, in addition to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, stylish Sauvignon Blancs, classic Merlots, potent Syrahs and a myriad other wines that shatter preconceived notions about cool wine-growing regions.

Touring the wine region called Santa Ynez Valley, part of greater Santa Barbara County, one will surely get distracted by the other attractions. One of these is the Danish town of Solvang that sits in the midst of the wineries.

Solvang is a year-round Christmas town, with its wonderful smells of butter-laced cookies baking, quaint decorations, and fascinating local foods.

Before setting out to see wineries, visitors traditionally have a breakfast that includes wafer-thin Danish pancakes, the mild Danish white sausage, and ableskivers - tiny, lightly fried dumplings, usually sugar-sprinkled and served with lingonberry jam.

From Solvang, east about four miles on Highway 246 is the tile-roofed Spanish hacienda home to Gainey Vineyard, which offers some of the most intriguing wine in the area. Also nearby is the home of Rick Longoria, whose wines bearing his name are some of the best in the region.

Just north along Highway 154 is the small villa of Fred Brander, the Brander Vineyard. Fred, longtime winemaker here starting at Santa Ynez Valley Winery, makes outstanding Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot-based wines.

Further north off Highway 154 visitors find Los Olivos, where a picnic lunch may be enjoyed in local parks with shade trees and a bottle of local wine. Most visitors pop into the Los Olivos Tasting Room, which serves wine of half a dozen local wineries for a nominal fee.

A bit further along there are the tasting rooms of both Firestone and Zaca Mesa. The former was founded by Brooks and Kate Firestone in the early 1970s, and to this day makes a wide array of fine wine, served in a large, inviting tasting room designed like a modern Spanish villa. Zaca Mesa, the training ground for some of region's greatest wine makers, continues to make splendid wines, notably some of the best Syrah are rose wine in the state.

Back south on Highway 101 to Buellton, you'll find Mosby, founded by Jeri and Bill Mosby, which specializes in Italian varietals; the superb wines of Fess Parker Winery, founded by the 1950s and 1960s television star, now managed by his son, and the superb Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays of Sanford, which are visible in a new tasting room on the winery's famed vineyard west of the highway.

For those who have never visited a wine country area, Santa Ynez Valley is a superb place to start. California viticulture and enology are sciences as well as art forms, and santa Ynez Valley is at the forefront of world-class wines that showcase creativity.

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The above was excerpted from the writings of Dan Berger, a wine journalist and former Los Angeles Times wine columnist who now publishes a private newsletter on wine, Dan Berger's Vintage Experiences. For information or a sample copy of his weekly newsletter on wine, visit his web site at www.VintageExperiences.com.