Anyone who knows me will tell you that if the word “festival” is attached to an event, I will normally head in the opposite direction. Crowds and lines for a tiny sip or taste of something is usually not my idea of fun. We made an exception for the California Wine Festival taking place at the beach in Santa Barbara. What the heck? I love wine, it was right by the beach and an easy drive to beautiful Santa Barbara.
The folks who organized this event as well as several others in Southern California (Dana Point, Huntington Beach and Carlsbad) run a well-organized visitor-friendly festival. The private tasting on Friday, July 15 and the public event on July 16 were very organized and not overcrowded. The result was a lot of happy wine enthusiasts sampling wine from some well-known and also some not-so-well-known boutique wineries.
As is always the case, the wine representatives were wonderfully sociable, welcoming and informative. We particularly enjoyed tasting and learning about the smaller wineries like Square Peg, a Russian River super-premium winery, and various family-owned wineries. We especially liked Kessler-Haak, Meadowlark Vineyards (both from Santa Barbara), Quench + Temper from Templeton and Vezer Family Vineyard from the Suisun Valley just east of Napa Valley (great Petite Syrah).
Breaking from my anti-festival attitude was well worth it. We enjoyed a fun, rewarding and informative day. The most important takeaway was that we discovered some excellent new wineries we look forward to visiting again in the future!
Visit CaliforniaWineFestival.com for future wine fest dates.