More Mondays should be like this one
Monday was Labor Day and our last full day in the Santa Ynez AVA before heading back to Oregon. We'd decided that we would go to Los Olivos as (hopefully) it would be less busy than on Saturday/Sunday. Turns out we were right. Our mission was to hit up E11even Wines because we'd visited back in January and really liked it. We also had orders that if they had any of their Chardonnay on special we were to pick some up for friends. They did, we did, and it's all good. Highlight of E11even was as we were leaving the gal out front absolutely losing her lunch in an epic projectile vomit fest. Gross. They hightailed it out of there without (as far as I could tell) paying their tasting fee or trying to clean up. Classy.
After hitting E11even our goal was to stop by Kalyra Winery with the intent of recreating or improving a photo I'd shot there on our first visit back in 2016. Kalyra was closed for remodeling so that definitely didn't happen. We'll get there next time. Not to be defeated it occurred to us that we'd forgotten to stop by the Hitching Post tasting room and soon realized they're closed Monday. Derp. Guess we'll get there next time too.
We decided to head back down the Santa Rosa Road and as Sanford had suggested Peake Ranch we made the choice to stop there and are happy they did. Perry took excellent care of us, was very personable, and shared a lot of great information. As I understand it on the grounds here at Peake is the original Sanford shed which was featured in Sideways (Miles and Jack's first stop as I recall) so I made sure to get some images of that building. Their grounds are incredible and the tasting room is beautiful-I'm especially fond of the wood (walnut IIRC) and antler chandelier. We floated around a bit on a short tour and grabbed some photos. We went home with some great wine-the highlight of which for me was the Grenache (one of my absolute favorites and the backbone of my beloved GSM).
After Peake we headed back to Buellton to cook some dinner, play with the dog, and unwind a bit. After dinner we came back out to the Santa Rosa Road and shot some photos of the sunset and scenery. I'm happy with how these turned out and if I'm completely honest you have to experience this place for yourself-it's magical. As darkness fell we packed up, headed back to the house, got our things together for the drive home, and got a little shut-eye before a long voyage back. All in all it was a spectacular trip that I very much enjoyed. It's wonderful to be able to spend time in a place you love with a person you love even more.
