August 31, 2018

Sideways Wine Tour

For how many times Neil and I have watched Sideways, we’ve never been to the region to try the wines. We made a point to take a trip to the Santa Rita Hills AVA this summer to follow the Sideways tourist map. We were calling it our Sideways Wine Tour and it would begin outside of Santa Barbara and end in San Jose with us stopping every day or two along the California Coast.

We’d be staying in Air Bnb’s in each location and including some beach time in addition to all the wine tastings. Our route included Carpinteria, Lompoc, Buellton, Solvang, Grover Beach, Pismo Beach, Paso Robles, and Carmel.

We’re still working through all those wine tasting notes so today’s entry is just the introduction but you can see all the wineries we included in the tour. Miles and Jack would have been so proud of us for the quantity of Pinot Noir that we tried. And honestly, I don't think we tried any Merlot in any of our tastings!

In the end we tried wine from Santa Rita Hills, Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez Valley, Paso Robles, Monterey, Santa Lucia Highlands, Santa Cruz Mountains, Carmel Valley, and Arroyo Seco. Find the winery list below and a few of the photos from this Sideways Wine Tour. And be sure to check back on this entry in the next couple weeks to find the links to the full entries for each winery.