Santa Ynez Wine Tour

The Sisters are Back! There was a mini hiatus but what better way for a comeback than with a road trip… We stumbled upon a deal we couldn’t resist on Travelzoo for a chauffeured Wine Tour of Santa Ynez Valley including lunch. So we headed out to Santa Ynez, California for a day of lip smacking wine tasting. We were met by our driver Mark from Gold Coast Limousines who picked us up for a 4 to 5 hour wine tour. On this tour we met fellow and future winos Chris, Maggie, Torry and Gina.  On our way to Rideau we sipped on champagne. Rideau is the only black female-owned winery located in Solvang. This vineyard is known for its New Orleans flair and Rhone varietals. From Rideau’s Winter Wine Flight list we tasted the following:  2010 Estate Viognier, 2009 Grenache Blanc, 2010 Siempre Albarino, 2009 Sangiovese, 2008 Lagniappe (which we learned means a lil bit extra), 2007 Iris Chateau Duplantier (Gold Medal Winner at the 2011 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition) and lastly a winos favorite, 2010 Riesling.  Andrew Murray Vineyard was our second stop located in Los Olivos. AMV specializes in Rhone red and whites. We were greeted by our friendly Sommelier, Tracy who educated and poured us everything from a 2009 Esperance to 2008 Grenache from the Terra Bella Vineyard and more. We had a picnic lunch at our last and final stop Fess Parker, which is a beautiful property located in Los Olivos sitting on over 1500 acres. This vineyard was a blur to lil sister. The vineyard was founded by the late American film and television actor Fess Elisha Parker Jr. The winery is known for selling coon skin caps which also happens to be the logo reminiscence of his acting days. At Fess Parker winos sampled Chardonnay, Viognier, Pinot Noir, Syrah and Port. One day just wasn’t enough for the sisters, so we woke up the next morning and hit up one last tasting room for some sweet wines,Royal Oaks, a winery after our own hearts. For $8 bucks we tasted five wines and took home a souvenir glass. Older sister was in heaven, she tasted the same wine twice. She walked out of there with two bottles of Concord and one bottle of Niagara. All in all we had a great time, we are already talking about revisiting Santa Ynez Valley, will you be there?