Unsideways: the tour

THE Santa Ynez Valley is one of the world’s great “aah” zones.

On each of dozens of wine-tasting trips I’ve made there over the years, the sensation of arrival is always the same: a tense ascent up twisting Highway 154 and then the gigantic release at the top, when the highway swoops down like a roller coaster onto plains of spun gold. Aah.

Napa has the marquee names and tasting rooms out of Architectural Digest, but the Santa Ynez Valley has proximity (it’s a two-hour drive from L.A., give or take a few bottlenecks) and soul. And until last year, it was off the mainstream tourist track.

Then the whole valley became a celebrity with the release of “Sideways,” the hit film that became eager new oenophiles’ “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” inspiring fans to make the pilgrimage to Santa Ynez and re-enact the bucket-dumping scene and Paul Giamatti’s pensive strolls from Buellton’s Hitching Post restaurant to his Solvang motel (actually a considerable hike). Tasting room staffers rolled their eyes as “Sideways” parrots pronounced Merlots undrinkable. And the newbies weren’t sipping and dumping -- they were swilling.

After the movie, I stayed away from the valley as long as I could bear, but my supply of favorite wines was dwindling. When I decided to return, I took comfort in the fact that while the crowds were zigging on the “Sideways” trail, I would be zagging on my own route. Call it the Unsideways tour.

Although the tasting room “stars” of the movie -- the Sanford, Kalyra, Foxen and Fess Parker wineries (the latter, in the best inside joke of the movie, playing the role of Frass Canyon, a megawinery with bad wines) -- are mobbed, many of the valley’s best producers are not. They also have some of the best scenery and, most important, good vibes.

The “Sideways” duo approaches the valley from Highway 101 at Highway 246, which stutters through Buellton and Solvang before reaching the heart of the wine region. But Highway 154, which is off the 101 just north of the Earl Warren Showgrounds in Santa Barbara, is not only a beautiful rural route, it’s also a good 15 to 20 minutes faster. Take 154 and one of the first things you see as you drop down into the valley is businessman Ty Warner’s Rancho San Marcos golf course (having already acquired the best hotels in Santa Barbara County, he’s buying its best golf courses). The highway passes Cachuma Lake (watch for golden eagles in winter) before reaching a fork. Stay on 154 all the way to Los Olivos, where I like to start my wine-tasting day.

Fall is a grand time to visit the wine country: You can feel the adrenaline buzz that comes with harvest. The autumn light settles like gilding on everything it touches. Monet would paint this landscape, and I like to think Rembrandt would catch the character in its people.

There are skimming-along-the-road views of the area’s beauty in “Sideways,” but somehow it never quite catches the panorama. Almost everywhere you look are fields of wild grass, some as flat as river basins, others undulating like snakes, embroidered with oak trees that look like aristocratic figurines. Deer walk out from behind their skirts, and osprey perch on their crowns.

This is still horse country. One of the top equine veterinary centers in the country is here, as is horse whisperer Monty Roberts. Arabians abound. Here Elton John’s longtime writing partner Bernie Taupin has a ranch where he pursues his passion for competitive cutting horses.

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It’s sleepy, all right

THE climate is delightful, and that is why the wineries are here in the first place. Santa Ynez and the Los Alamos and Santa Maria valleys to the north are defined by hills that run east-west rather than north-south. The effect is to funnel in the ocean air, even in the summer, and it’s why the temperamental Pinot Noir grape flourishes, along with Syrah, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, and why Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel don’t, except in a few microclimates.

Even with the jump in tourism that came with “Sideways,” Los Olivos wakes up slowly. Most of the tasting rooms don’t open before 11, but if you go to the town square, there are art galleries and antiques stores and home and garden shops, all small, cozy affairs and not a chain in sight, unless you count Panino. I discovered Panino’s sandwiches and salads at its Montecito location, but the Los Olivos site is the mother ship. I am also fond of the Santa Maria-style tri-tip barbecue cooked on grills set up outside R Country Store, around the corner from Panino.

During an early lunch at Panino, I look over a 2004 map produced by the Santa Barbara County Vintners’ Assn. It is a glossy thing of beauty and lists everybody making wine in the valley. But just as “Sideways” was rolling out of the editing bays, the association was collapsing internally.

Once the 2004 maps were snapped up, there was no money to print new ones. The vintners hoped to produce a new map this summer, but each time they thought they were done, a new winery would pop up. Jim Fiolek, the current association leader, says there will be maps in early October. He must have decided basta.

It’s a one-minute walk from Panino to Longoria Wines, a place I never miss. Winemaker Rick Longoria opened a tasting room in the square in 1998 to showcase his remarkable Pinot Noirs, made with grapes from the two best areas for this varietal, the Santa Rita Hills appellation in Santa Ynez and the neighboring Bien Nacido in Santa Maria. His excellent Chardonnays are also French in sensibility.

So it was an eyebrow-raiser to see a Spaniard added to the tasting list, a crisp Albarino, and to hear the news from Diana Longoria, the winemaker’s wife, that there’s a Tempranillo coming out in December. I am tickled about this new addition at Longoria; there’s something poetic about Spanish wines finally hitting this part of the colony.

The Longoria tasting room and fountain-filled garden are always serene. Diana bars groups of more than eight people.

Back in the car, it’s a short hop to the junction of the 154 and Refugio Road and the Brander Vineyard. Fred Brander is one of the valley characters Rembrandt would have loved; the painter would have captured the very Bordeaux burgher inside this cowboy country winemaker. Sauvignon Blancs have long been Brander’s forte, and his Bouchets in the early ‘90s were great. Under his Domaine Santa Barbara label he made some remarkable Chardonnays in the late ‘90s and now there’s a good 2001 Syrah.

The staff members in the tasting room tend to be familiar faces year after year and have been known to draft walk-ins to help label bottles when short-staffed, which is all part of the charm. Like Longoria, Brander limits the size of groups. It’s not that his tasting room is so small, but the madding crowds would certainly spoil the insouciance.

Near Brander is Beckmen Vineyards, where the pleasant tasting room is edged by a deck overlooking the winery’s duck pond. Beckmen has been able to experiment with some of the hotter varietals such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc with the grapes from its Purisima Mountain location, one of the interesting local microclimates.

I was taken with a Cabernet Franc I had there in mid-summer, but it’s sold out when I check back in early fall. Darn. Obviously I’m not alone in my readiness to show cranky Miles that, yes, this Cabernet Franc is different. And Beckmen’s Cabernet Sauvignon is on the wine list (right there with the big boys from Napa) at Brothers Restaurant in Los Olivos, the valley’s standout restaurant.

Heading down Alamo Pintado Road out of Los Olivos, I see it, the thing I have been dreading: a Humvee limousine, the spawn of “Sideways,” attempting a U-turn (is this possible on these narrow country rounds?). It distracts me for a moment from my quest to find the Foley Estates Vineyard & Winery parking lot. Then I see the distinctive turn-of-the-20th-century redwood farmhouse that serves as its tasting room.

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Familiar places

BACK in the day it was the home of J. Carey winery, for which Rick Longoria crafted wines from 1979 until its sale to Kate and Brooks Firestone in 1985. The farmhouse is still as telegenic as when it starred for two years in the late ‘80s’ “Aaron’s Way,” a TV drama purportedly set in Amish country. Now, under the Foley ownership, I discover it has noteworthy Pinot Noirs, but I am going to pay dearly for them.

Foley may have stood in for Amish country but, down the road toward Solvang, at Buttonwood Farm Winery & Vineyard, it’s pure Provence. The gardens, heavy with lavender, are bordered by a peach orchard. There are pomegranate hedges in the parking lot and pomegranate jam in the tasting room. And fresh peaches are displayed for sale outside. There are a lot of tchotchkes in the tasting room too, something you expect in Napa but rare for Santa Ynez. Australian Mike Brown of Kalyra makes the Sauvignon Blanc this winery is known for.

Rusack Vineyards is the farthest from the Los Olivos center of what is an easily accessible circle of wineries, but it’s worth the drive. Take Alamo Pintado to 246 and Solvang, then pick up Atterdag Road out of Solvang, drive to where it meets up with Ballard Canyon Road and turn right. The Pinot Noirs were sold out at this winery, which the staff blames on an MSNBC segment and two Wine Spectator raves, but they do everything else well anyway, including Merlot. Yes, a lovely Merlot.

Rusack is formerly the site of Ballard Canyon Winery, which made barely passable wines, but built the wonderful picnic deck under probably the prettiest oak trees in the valley. And the gardens lining the vineyard look as if they’re out of a Montecito estate. Next to Buttonwood, Rusack is my favorite place for picnicking. The winery motif is a simple, beautiful Catalina tile -- the owner’s wife is an heiress to the Wrigley fortune.

One “Sideways”-spotlighted winery seems to have escaped unscathed. Although Andrew Murray Vineyards’ Syrah is featured prominently in the film (remember Virginia Madsen holding the bottle to her cheek?), the winery’s Los Olivos tasting room is quiet, even for a small tasting room in the peak summer season. The Syrahs are as good as the hype. I also buy an olive oil produced by the owners of Olio e Limone restaurant, a terrific Italian restaurant in Santa Barbara, and it’s great.

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Looking ahead

NEXT year I’ll be adding Ken Volk Vineyards to my Santa Barbara County wine tour. Volk recently purchased the original Byron Vineyard & Winery (whose sparkling wine made an appearance in “Sideways”), founded by the brilliant Ken Brown, who worked magic at Zaca Mesa before leaving there in 1985. At Byron, Brown produced great Chardonnays and Pinot Noir, then was bought out by Mondavi, which hired architect Scott Johnson to design an eye-catching new facility and then sold that to an even bigger corporation.

At the old winery on Tepusquet Road in Santa Maria, Volk is busy making Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, having some money to burn after selling his Wild Horse Winery & Vineyards in Templeton to a subsidiary of Jim Beam. He plans to open to the public in April.

I used to frequent the Hitching Post in Buellton, with its great steak and fries, but wouldn’t dare now. Even the locals, who have taken “Sideways” in stride, are angry that they can’t just drop into this now-packed-to-the-beams favorite anymore.

So I usually end the day with dinner at one of two places. The first is the classy Brothers inside Mattei’s Tavern in Los Olivos, which still has so much historic character that you can almost hear the horses stamping their feet from when this was a major stagecoach stop. The second is Patrick’s Side Street Cafe in Los Olivos. Chef Patrick Rand is another character worthy of Rembrandt, or maybe Hunter Thompson, waving to cars from the porch of his restaurant or engaging in crack-up dialogues with complete strangers. His food is as masterful as a Dutch still life too.

As I finish off an amazing dinner at Patrick’s of medallions of pork loin with a sauce of Oloroso sherry, whole-grain French mustard and cream, I am feeling warm and generous. Maybe I’ll invite Miles to come along next time, as long as he promises not to drink and dial.

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Where to go

Wine

Beckmen Vineyards, 2670 Ontiveros Road, Los Olivos, (805) 688-8664; www.beckmenvineyards.com

The Brander Vineyard, 2401 Refugio Road, Los Olivos, (805) 688-2455; www.brander.com

Buttonwood Farm Winery & Vineyard, 1500 Alamo Pintado Road, Solvang. (805) 688-3032; www.buttonwoodwinery.com

Foley Estates Vineyard & Winery, 1711 Alamo Pintado Road, Solvang. (805) 688-8554; www.foleywines.com

Longoria Wines, 2935 Grand Ave., Los Olivos, (866) 759-4637 or (805) 688-0305; www.longoriawine.com

Andrew Murray Vineyards, 2901 Grand Ave., Los Olivos, (805) 693-9644; www.andrewmurrayvineyards.com

Rusack Vineyards, 1819 Ballard Canyon Road, Solvang, (805) 688-1278; www.rusackvineyards.com

Food

Brothers Restaurant at Mattei’s Tavern, 2350 Railway Ave., Los Olivos, (805) 688-4820

Panino, 2900 Grand Ave., Los Olivos, (805) 688-9304

Patrick’s Side Street Cafe, 2375 Alamo Pintado Road, Los Olivos, (805) 686-4004

R Country Store, 2948 Grand Ave., Los Olivos, (805) 688-6750