My sister moved to southern California years ago, but until recently I’d never visited her there.
It’s not for any dramatic reason. It’s just that she shares a small place with a roommate and they both work from home, the roommate often on evenings and weekends, so having overnight guests isn’t super feasible. And until recently, neither of us had enough of a salary to afford multiple nights in a hotel instead.
Plus, you know, Covid happened.
Long story short, I was very overdue for a visit. Well, my sister had a milestone birthday this past spring, so it was the perfect excuse for me to finally make the trip!
A couple months in advance, we decided she would pick something she’s always wanted to splurge on and I would fly to SoCal for a birthday celebration. Her choice: taking the train to Santa Barbara to go wine tasting.
I’m not much of a wine drinker, but for her I figured I’d give it a shot.
Wine not, as I always say.
(Full disclosure: I actually borrowed that from How I Met Your Mother. It’s a pun I try to use as often as possible, much to my husband’s chagrin.)
So when the time came, I hopped on a plane, trading snowy Colorado for sunny rainy California. Our two days in Santa Barbara were book-ended by three days in the Los Angeles area, which I’ll be writing about soon. But for now, it’s time for wine!
The ride to Santa Barbara on Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner route is theoretically a very scenic journey. For us, however, it was rainy on the way there and dark on the way back, so the scenery was not as stellar as it could have been. My least splotchy photo is below.
We were on the first train of the day, along with a whole bunch of other eager wine tasters. Clearly this is a popular activity. One group was obnoxiously loud and rowdy for the entire train ride and they hadn’t even started drinking yet; I can only imagine how annoying they were the rest of the day.
Thankfully, we didn’t encounter them again.
Anyway. We arrived in Santa Barbara around 10:00am and, after dropping off our luggage at our hotel, we set off for the first of our three planned wine tastings. When it comes to alcohol, both of us are embarrassing lightweights and neither of us enjoy being drunk, so this was going to be a lesson in pacing ourselves.
There are few things in life my sister enjoys more than cupcakes, so when we were researching for this trip and stumbled across Corks ‘n Crowns, which serves sparkling wine flights paired with cupcakes on Sunday mornings, we immediately knew it would be our first stop. The flights included three different wines each paired with a mini cupcake, and not only was this my favorite of the three locations we visited, but the Saracco Moscato d’Asti ended up being my favorite wine I’ve ever had.
(That being said, my wine-related opinions should be taken with a grain of salt. I only enjoy sweet white wines. I can reluctantly tolerate drier whites and rosés, but red wines make me scrunch up my entire face in disgust while my husband laughs at me (and captures my reaction on video). The only alcohol that’s more disgusting than red wine is whiskey. Actually, that’s not true; it’s a tossup as to which of those I dislike the most.)
The cupcakes were also delicious – the coconut one was my favorite, which was unsurprising since coconut everything is my favorite – and I very much enjoyed the many puns and other humorous wall decorations in the tasting room. We took our time here, slowly sipping the wines and savoring the cupcakes while listening to the pitter patter of rain against the windows.
Our next stop was located just a few blocks away, so we burrowed back into our rain coats and set off on foot, thankful that the rain had slowed to a light drizzle. Melville’s predominately offers red wines, so this was predictably my least favorite of the three.
My sister very much enjoyed her red wine flight, though, while I sipped on a glass of the only white wine they offer (I think it was a chardonnay but I don’t actually remember). We also ordered the pita chips and hummus to help soak up some of the alcohol. The hummus was deliciously garlicky and the pita chips were fried and crispy, and are some of the best I’ve ever had.
We were definitely feeling the wine at this point, so before our third and final stop of the day, it was time for some lunch. We ended up at the pizza place around the corner and enjoyed a brick oven-style margherita pizza in their covered outdoor seating area.
Our final stop of the day was Paradise Springs Winery, where we opted to share their flight of six: three reds, two whites, and a rosé. My sister, obviously, drank the reds while I drank the others.
There are at least a dozen other wine tasting venues in town; we just barely scratched the surface on this trip. But both of us were maxed out at this point, so we headed back to our hotel and spent the afternoon lazing around. We’d booked a room at Castillo Inn on the Beach, a small hotel just a couple blocks from the ocean, and it was great! They held our luggage both before we checked in and after we checked out, and upgraded us to a suite. It was clean and quaint and quiet, and the only thing that could have improved our stay was if they had a continental breakfast.
That evening, once the effects of the wine had mostly worn off, we dragged ourselves out of bed and walked down to Point Castillo for sunset. It was too cloudy for there to actually be any color in the sky, but the evening air and ocean breeze felt nice and it was a lovely end to the day.
Up next: part II of our Santa Barbara sojourn. Stay tuned!
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