Sunday!

Sunday found us with a pretty lax schedule...which is just the way we wanted it. Our goal for the day was to hit the Santa Rosa Road in pursuit of some great photos and Sanford Winery. Sanford is pretty legendary in the area and when you visit their tasting room it's pretty easy to understand why. The drive out to Sanford is beautiful with rolling hills, sweeping vistas, and when you visit in early September lots of beautiful fruit on the vines. If my memory serves me correctly in the film adaptation of Sideways (I get it enough with the trivia) Sanford is the first stop Jack and Miles make at their old location (and we'll talk about that later).

When we'd visited 3 years prior it was spring so there were no grapes on the vines so we definitely stopped along the way to grab some images. One of those images is milepost 7.28 which is where Fiddlehead Cellars grows (some, all?) of their grapes. If you're not familiar with Fiddlehead it's time to become aware as their winemaker, Kathy Joseph, makes some of the best wine you'll find anywhere. I'm especially partial to their Sauvignon Blanc, Gruner Veltliner, and Pinot Noir to name a few.

After sharing a lovely bottle of Pinot Blanc at Sanford (which is a pretty rare varietal and great for a hot day in the sun) Tracy and I headed to Lompoc, CA for (surprise) Fiddlehead to source a few bottles of their Gruner Veltliner for our friends and neighbors (same folks) since they so enjoyed it when we were there in January. We sampled a few wines at Fiddlehead, came back with a few more than we'd anticipated, and really had a nice time as we were the only people in the tasting room and ended up with a few bonus pours (you'll remember I love those).

Omnomnom.....

After leaving Fiddlehead we jumped back on Route 246 towards Buellton with the goal of visiting Foley Estates to check out some of their wines as our Firestone club membership included tasting there. In completely unsurprising news we were very pleased with what Foley had to offer and I was an especially big fan of their T Anchor Ranch Chardonnay. After a nice tasting experience at Foley we decided it was time for a snack and the people we talked with over the past few days kept recommending Industrial Eats in Buellton-and at that their Caesar Salad. Here's what I'll say about Industrial Eats; best damn Caesar Salad I've ever had! Their pizza was incredible (I mean they've got The Warriors painted on the thing how could it be lousy?), the vibe was super cool, but it was HOT in there. My suggestion if you're going is to go early or late depending on the weather.

Lastly, since it was right next door and we'd met (Kevin?) out in Solvang earlier in the weekend we dropped in to Alma Rosa Winery for a quick tasting. Cool tasting room (the A/C was much needed after Industrial) and pretty good wine. If I'm completely honest their value to taste ratio is bit too low for me but hey wine's subjective so who knows. That was pretty much the end of our Sunday tomfoolery as we headed back to the house after that to let the dog out (I know there's a song about that) and to freshen up for a late dinner at Los Olivos Cafe. Dinner at Los Olivos was spectacular-I ordered a burger with a fried egg and bacon (sorry arteries) which was incredible and I was pretty stuffed by that point so I took about half of it to go. Once back at the house we played catch with Reggie and shut it down for the evening in preparation for our last day in paradise (well one of them).