Santa Barbara has been on the list as someplace I always wanted to see but never was sure when I would get there. I knew that the area was not only beautiful but also just south of a good wine growing region with the Santa Rita Hills and the Santa Ynez Valley.

How did I know this? Easy, I watched the movie Sideways back in the day, and although it’s not one of my favorite wine movies (too much drama for me), it provided a small insight into the area. I think it is amazing that short rant in a movie changed the way we drink. One character said he doesn’t drink Merlot, and it shifted an entire industry — I’m still blown away by this. I was the sommelier at Brennan’s of Houston when that movie came out, and Merlot went from one of the top selling varietals at the time to a screeching halt. I’m not sure that over 20 years later it ever recovered.

What I did learn from that movie is that I needed to get out to this area and see what was happening. My wife Lindsey and I finally made it there last November, and I’m sorry it took us so long. The city of Santa Barbara sits right on the California coast, which gives it its own beauty, but I see its beauty in terms of food and wine.

The area is full of beautiful farmland and some of the most highly regarded seafood in the world. From spot prawns, sea urchin, spiny lobsters, and beautiful fin fish to some of the most spectacular farmers markets I’ve ever seen. I really need to rent a home out there just to be have the ability to cook these products — the cook in me just goes crazy and it’s all I can think about.

Lindsey and I spent an afternoon at the farmers market where we saw the most beautiful carrots, citrus, and lettuces. Then, we headed out to the pier to find small plastic kiddie pools filled with spiny lobsters and sea urchin for sale. Seeing all of those fresh ingredients made it an easy decision to walk over to our perfect style of restaurant, the Santa Barbara Shellfish Company. This place is majestic — it sits out at the end of the pier over the water where you can get uni shooters, steamed Dungeness crab, and grilled spiny lobster then wash it all down with a bottle of Stolpman Rose, hell yes!

We have a friend, Natalie Vaclavik, who spends a good amount of time out there. She gave us a well-documented list of places to see and things do along with a very well comprised list restaurants to try and wineries and tasting rooms to see. Houstonians travel to Napa a lot, which is an easy place to go from winery to winery. Sta Rita Hills can be just as easy but in a different way.

One day that we knew we were going to do a lot of tasting, we hired a driver to take us around. We started in the town of Los Olivos which is absolutely beautiful and packed with tasting rooms. The town feels like it’s about four blocks by four blocks big and is home to more than 30 tasting rooms from wineries around the area.

Grab a tasting at Dragonette or next door at Liquid Farm and then head down the block to have lunch at Bar Le Côte then walk around to so many other tasting rooms. This is why a driver is a good call or just book a few nights at The Inn at Mattei’s Tavern, which is an Auberge property that was an old stagecoach stop in the late 1800s. For dinner, head up the road to Los Alamos at a fantastic little restaurant named Bell’s, which is owned by Daisy Ryan and her husband Greg. This restaurant is an absolute must (they also own Bar Le Côte). They are skilled technicians and really are changing things for good in the area. Good people doing good things, and I like that.

This is a wine column, so let’s get into the wine. This area is so unique because it has multiple microclimates that really excel at certain varietals that I love. You have one area that produces some of the best Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and then down the road there are some of the most amazing Syrah, Grenache and small amounts of Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and other Bordeaux varietals. It’s like a mixed bag of happy, and I’m here for it!

Natalie works with a couple of wineries, and we were fortunate enough to try them both at one beautiful place. We headed out to Lompoc just north of Santa Barbara to a stunning property, The Hilt Estate, which really makes you feel like you are in the middle of the most peaceful place on earth. The Hilt Estate focuses on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from a few of the great vineyards in the area, Radian, Bentrock, and Punta Del Mar. The other winery is Jonata which is in Ballard County out of the Santa Ynez Valey and produces world-class Syrah, Sangiovese and some Bordeaux varietals.

Courtesy of The Hilt Estate

Both of these wineries are led by an absolute rock star of a winemaker, Matt Dees, who has been with the wineries over 20 years. I think this is one of the company’s greatest attributes. It allows for a winery to have a significant style, because that winemaker knows everything about the soil, the vines, and the changing of the weather around them. They literally become one with the wines, and I believe that is what makes great wine.

Let’s talk The Hilt Estate for a minute. I knew I was going to like the wines but I really love them. It was delicious that I didn’t see coming. It really reinforces some of my thoughts that I have shared with you over the past few months: I really like Chardonnay in this style which is easy to describe in a few words — clean, citrusy with slight stone fruit flavors, and full of life. The Pinots are complex with dark fruit like cherry and plum but also mushroom and earth.

The wines are the most interesting because of the unfavorable conditions in which they thrive. The soils, the ocean influence, and the high winds are all traditionally very hard for the grape growers but very favorable for the wine makers. The roots have to grow deep to get the things the vines need to thrive in which in turn gives lower yields of grapes with much more complexity. The easy way to think of this is that with table grapes, they are grown in very favorable conditions with lots of water and sun which gives you tons and tons of fruit that are sweet and juicy but not complex. Tell me how you think that new cotton candy grapes would taste in a glass. In tough conditions, the yields are lower with less water and more intense fruit and tannins which make fantastic wine.

The Jonata wines are equally as amazing but with a different vibe. Syrah is the leader here, and Matt is making magic. All of the other wines under this label are stunning as well like the Flor which is the Sauvignon Blanc that dreams are made of and, well, I dream about them quite often. I recently had the opportunity to taste some of the older vintages of the La Sangre of Jonata, which is their Syrah. I tasted the 2005, 2006, and the 2019 vintages and was really blown away by them. The 2005 was so fresh like it was just bottled and same with the 2006 but you could really see how the weather of each year influenced the wines.

Matt told me, “Syrah can give you multiple variations in a growing season with the weather. In cooler years you can get grapes that give you flavors that remind you of wines from the Northern Rhône while hotter vintages will give you jammier-style wine that you would get in Australia.”

Matt and the teams at both Hilt Estate and Jonata are really changing the game out in that area and we are all the beneficiaries of their work. Natalie will be pouring both of these wines at Decanted in a few weeks! If you didn’t get tickets, I’m so sorry because it’s sold out but I will be sharing info about our badass auction very soon. If you’re like me, you’ll definitely want to be bidding on these amazing wines, trips, and experiences the team at the Southern Smoke Foundation has put together.

I said earlier that it took me along time to get to the Santa Barbara area but I promise you this, it won’t take us that long to get back.

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Have any other questions about Santa Barbara? Send them to Chris via email at chris@chrisshepherd.is.

Chris Shepherd won a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest in 2014. The Southern Smoke Foundation, a nonprofit he co-founded with his wife Lindsey Brown, has distributed more than $11 million to hospitality workers in crisis through its Emergency Relief Fund. Catch his TV show, Eat Like a Local, every Saturday at 10 am on KPRC Channel 2.