some good wines

I promised to blog about something other than politics... although I'm really tempted.

Saturday we were doing some work around the new condo and after lunch said, let's go taste some wines. We went to three wineries...

the first was Starlane and Dierberg. I had read some good things about them and they're about 5 miles from our house. Well, their wines were OK but nothing inspired us.

Next we drove a ways north and went to Foxen. It is a delightful little winery and we tasted a number of great wines. We bought a bottle of an '03 Zinfindel that will be amazing for Thanksgiving. I highly recommend their wines.

Finally we drove back to Los Olivos - a little town in the middle of the Santa Ynez valley with lots of tasting rooms. We've long been fans of Andrew Murray Wines. They make some great syrahs - in spite of what they told you in Sideways, syrahs are the best wines from Santa Barbara County. They had a great tasting with I think 10 different wines including 5 or 6 different syrahs. We bought two bottles including one that is made from grapes sourced from another of our favorite local vineyards - Stolpman Vineyards. It will be fun to compare this wine to one that Stolpman made from the same grapes.

Then tonight, Cheryl and I went out for a belated birthday dinner for me, to a little restaurant in Los Olivos called Patrick's Sidestreet Cafe. We had a great meal and another bottle of local wine - a syrah from Consilience Wines from the Rodney Shull vineyard. Very, very nice. Best of all... I had an amazing dark chocolate dessert. I love chocolate but too often, chocolate desserts are too sweet for me. This one was dark and rich and was amazing with the last bit of the syrah.

So, if you're looking at a Santa Barbara wine, I'd recommend the Foxen Zin (their chardonnays were very nice as well if you prefer white wine), just about any red from Andrew Murray, or the Consilience reds.