WOPN 2025: Old Friends

One of the reasons I love going to World of Pinot Noir is that I've gone to WOPN before. Even better, many people I really like go year after year, or go AWOL for a few and then reappear and it's as thrilling as when the magician brings his missing assistant in a flash back to the stage. I love wine, obviously--just count the thousands of words I've spilled about it in my life. But I love people more. And lord knows, we need community right now. So thanks for all of that, WOPN. 

So what to my wondrous eyes should appear pouring at The Hilt table than Patrick Reynolds. I knew he had been working there for a few years now, but he will always be one of Santa Barbara's best bartenders in my head--even winning a Foodie from the Indy way back when--and he started the Farm-to-Bar Tuesdays at Wildcat/Bobcat with Shaun Belway. A man with impeccable taste and boundless creativity, he's always good for a few fun stories along the way, too. Plus, he was pouring Matt Dees' as ever norm-setting wine from The Hilt. This was winning WOPN bingo. (That got reinforced when the person tasting beside me was Don Schroeder, director of winemaking at Sea Smoke.)

It was a delightful flight of nine wines, so I won't write about them all. But some important lessons: evidently the talk around the water cooler, as Patrick put it, is Radian is Chardonnay, Bentrock is Pinot Noir. (Here's hoping I don't have it introduce you to two of Sta. Rita Hill's wildest, most wonderful vineyards.) Or to put it another way, Bentrock Pinot is a dog--"A wine that hugs you--thanks, I needed that!" while the Radian Pinot is a cat, and says, "No love until I kill you." That's all Reynolds. The festive and fabulous sparkling is hand riddled, so Patrick is happy they don't make more of it (it's at 125 cases now). And then the Estate 2022 Pinot, a blend of all three Hilt vineyards (Puerta Del Mar too) and a bit of Sanford & Benedict whole cluster, well, it's not as singularly distinctive but it is all the yummy, and it costs a lot less. Sign me up.

Even more than wondrous moment above, my orbs might have done the cartoon sproing out of my head when I spied Aaron Watty. The lucky of you might remember him from his days as a server at bouchon, or his very small production but high quality Big Tar Wines. Heck, I even wrote an Indy feature about a dinner he once chefed himself featuring his wines back in 2015. But he hightailed it from these parts for a bit, down at The Rose in Venice Beach. So to see him at the Joyce Wine Company Table was a delight. Turns out Joyce took over the rundown Ventana Winery in Soledad in 2020, and has slowly been restoring it, now with Watty's help as an assistant winemaker. 

The winery has a Joyce label that's all priced at $25 a bottle, "fresh, charming, easy drinking everyday wines," as they put it, from Albariño to Syrah. Then there's the Russell Joyce label, higher end, club member only, and also single vineyard goodies. I got to taste two of these, the 2023 Rusell Joyce Pinot Noir from Pelio Vineyard from the hilltops overlooking Monterey Bay on the Carmel Coast. "It brings the salinity I'm familiar with," Watty points out, comparing it to the fruit he knew from Duvarita Vineyard in Santa Barbara County. It was clean, fresh, bright. The 2023 Russell Joyce PN from Cortada Alta I liked even better, a hearty, very typical Santa Lucia Highlands, deep, dark berry Pinot from the highest elevation in the AVA. Watty told a great story of how Joyce could drive grapes carefully down the precipice-edged hill in perfect a little-to-the-left, a little-to-the-right correction balance, earning Aaron's trust, and paralleling the ways Joyce can finesse his way between tension and harmony with his wines.

Speaking of Aarons, it's always imperative to visit Aaron Walker from Pali Wine Co. at WOPN. (Yes, it seems I only hang out with really tall winemakers, now that I think about it, not that you have a photo of Walker here.) I've known him since he served wine in our house as part of the we need to bring it back again Indy series Make Me Dinner (and the unsaid, And Pour Me Wine) in 2013. My apology to him was he was my last table to visit on Friday, and I only hope I wasn't as blurry as my notes of the tasting are. The two big news item he share were that their Funk Zone tasting room was scheduled for a big remodel and that Pali in general is going focus more on their own Sta. Rita Hills vineyard, planted in 2012 in Gypsy Canyon. That direction bodes well based on my taste of the 2020 PN Pali Vineyard that nails what SRH can do; my notes was, "always what you want from where you want." Each of the 7 different clones used for this estate wine is hand-harvested separately and then fermented and aged individually, so Walker and his team can blend and balance as they see fit. That blend is then barrel-aged for a year-and-a-half in 50% new French oak, 50% neutral. The result is 100% scrumptious. Also notable was Pali's last offering from the renowned Fiddlestix Vineyard, a 2021, that practically vibrated with the tension of acid and fruit.

While Aaron Walker gets to focus on Pali's own fruit, Matt Brady continues SAMsARA's fine project--finding the best Santa Barbara sources and making the best wine possible from each. (Note I didn't get a photo of Matt or his wines, so the above image is from the winery's website--I'm such a writer first, or is that old guy first/last, who didn't grow up with social media--thankgod.) He even flipped the Hilt's water cooler script, pouring captivating 2021 Radian Pinot and 2022 Bentrock Chardonnay. Both exemplified what I've come to think of as SAMsARA's signature--each wine will surprise you with the depth of what it brings. I was going to say a kind of Phil Spector Wall of Sound but: 1) no one members what that means ("River Deep - Mountain High" anyone?), and 2) Spector was a crazy, murderous bastard, so why drag him into it. Brady's wine makes you want to contemplate, not kill, and then sigh in happiness considering their profundity. 

Speaking of profound, it would be hard to calculate all the good Karen Steinwachs has done for our region's wine industry. As you can see, she's not afraid to get her hand's dirty (again, not my photo). She's, and this list isn't exhaustive: a director and chairperson emeritus at WOPN; president of the Women Winemakers & Culinarians Foundation (who just had what looks like a great festival and I missed it all and I'm sad--my schedule is too crazy!); kindly helped staff the Santa Barbara Vintners table all weekend while other members off SBV were off in Korea and Japan, trying to build the SB brand there. She's always good for a few incisive quips but what's better, for making gorgeous wines as Seagrape Wine Co. At the SBV table she was pouring a 2022 Jump Up Pinot from Hibbits Ranch Vineyard. Matt Kettmann--speaking of old friends--wrote this about it in his 95 point Wine Enthusiast write-up: "Lovely aromas of raspberry, mulberry and black plum are decorated in complex waves of thyme and pepper on the nose of this single-vineyard expression from a vineyard just east of Lompoc. The zippy palate is brisk with pomegranate and raspberry flavors that are enlivened by sumac, cinnamon and blood orange touches." Exactly. Karen joked, "It includes all the clones [ten]. And yes, Michael Benedict was involved in its planting."

And yes, Gray Hartley of Hitching Post Wines was involved in WOPN. He and his partner Frank Ostini have been making SB Pinot for 40 years. (Heck, that was the year Mike Wallace grilled some rich New York jagoff about his future political ambitions on 60 Minutes.) Gray, ever with a twinkle in his eye, just loves making people happy with wines, and the occasional bad joke. For example, he told me that when people come up and tell him they knew of his wines before an Academy Award-winning film blew them and the Hitching Post restaurant up, he replies, "That's BS," and waits for their shocked expression before following up, "Before Sideways." While H-P's current releases were spot on, it's also good that at WOPN Hartley likes to open up older vintages to help prove SB Pinot manages just fine. After all, most of us don't cellar stuff away, especially given what real estate costs round these parts--square footage has to go to people sleeping and not wine bottle snoozes. One such pour was a 2001 from Fiddlestix Vineyard that was completely unbricked, fresh and fruit-driven to the point you would never guess it was old enough to drink itself. 

Heck, so is World of Pinot Noir at 25. Long may it pour/roar.

Girl Grape Power

You know you're at the right event when you overhear other folks discussing compound butters. That's just one small way to suggest what a big event--part of an even bigger event--can embody. For the 2024 Women Winemakers and Culinarians Celebration that just occurred March 6-10, with a Grand Tasting on March 9 at boutique vineyard event space 27 Vines in Santa Ynez, was, as usual, an incredible community treasure. International Women's Day has no better home than Santa Barbara. 

Winemaker for Seagrape Karen Steinwachs (in the middle of the photo above, with chef Brooke Stockwell on the left and County Supervisor Joan Hartmann on the right--of the photo, that is), one of the events founders and organizers, let on, "There are 250 guests but 70 of us winemakers and culinarians." That's a 3.57 "faculty-student" ratio that you'd be amazed to find at even the toniest of prep schools. But in this case the "faculty" makes much of the best wine and food Santa Barbara County has to offer. There's a belief that SB has the highest ratio of women winemakers, one of those stats that makes sense when you look at photos like the one that leads this post, but is hard to prove definitively (like, if Cole Ranch, which is an AVA that's a single vineyard, was owned by a woman, that would be 100%...). Most importantly, the fest exists to give back to the community, and this year's beneficiary was She Raised Her Hand, which provides opportunities for 2 million women veterans to find community, purpose, and strength.

One of the tricky things writing about this event is that it's spectacular annually, so coming up with witty insights about it gets harder and harder. Last year I thrilled to find two of our county's best winemakers, period, Angela Osborne of A Tribute to Grace and Jessica Gasca of Story of Soil sharing a table--well, look at that photo above from this year. Once again both poured stunning wines--Osborne offering brand new releases from large format bottles--we all need to be talking about her Grenache Blanc more, you know--while Gasca's just disgorged 2023 Pet Nat made from Gruner was a perfect working-on-being-spring afternoon quencher. Hooray for brand new releases that confirm our region's deliciousness.

Speaking of deliciousness, there was plenty, like the scarfable ahi poke lettuce wraps from Erica Velasquez at Ramen Kotori. Heck, Joy Reinhardt from Ellie's Tap & Vine made me like bread pudding (usually not my favorite texture), by making sure the edges were crisped and crunchy. Brooke Stockwell from Los Olivos Cafe spoiled us with the unctuousness of butternut uni crostini. Jane Darrah from Good Witch Farm (what a perfect name for the event, no?) showered a chicken liver mousse crostini with gorgeous, delicious micro greens and edible flowers. 

While I didn't get enough photos of the food as I don't want to show pictures of me contentedly chewing, here's one of the view. The site was something, with plenty of space so things never felt crowded. We got to have lots of lovely conversations, which is part of the point of such an event. In particular a long chat with Sonja Magdevski--while tasting wonderful pours like her concrete egg-aged Roussanne and a wine cider that's 2/3 Mourvèdre Rosé and 1/3 pippin apples--is slowly phasing out the Casa Dumetz name so all her wines will be Clementine Carter. A scoop, of sorts.

In the news to me, you decide if it's a scoop to you category--SBC is truly rocking Gamay right now. The carbonic one above from Dreamcôte was beautiful, made whole cluster from Donnachadh Vineyard, Sta. Rita Hill's grapes that only winemaker Brit Zotovich, Ernst Storm, and the vineyard owners got to play with. Another Gamay winner comes from The Joy Fantastic, from Amy Christine and Peter Hunken's own SRH vineyard. I'd love to crack open bottles of each to taste side-by-side someday and drown in pomegranate and mineral goodness.

As for out and out new winery finds, I was most excited by another pair of table neighbors. I nicked the label image from the deeply pleasing Grenache from Cote of Paint to make clear they've got senses of both humor and marketing. Couple Kristin Harris Luis and Nick Luis both have connections with the ever-impressive Dragonette, so have learned from the best. Their creation story joke is, “We don’t want to change how wine is made, we just want to throw on a coat of paint,” but they paint deliciously. And they don't even fussily mess with the diacritical mark on the o in cote, which is mighty kind. Next to them was Amber Rose Wine, and Amber also honors a terrific mentor, in this case Pinot legend Ken Brown. Her 2018 Riverbench Vineyard SMV Pinot Noir is elegant yet speaks of the Santa Maria Valley with its salinity. Although a small operation, Amber Rose also insists on every employee being a woman in her business. Hard to beat that as a way to qualify for the occasion. 

And I wanted to end here, as it encapsulates the joy of the day. I'd laugh a lot, too, if I were as talented as Jessica Foster, who came up with the brilliant, sweet-salty bite: s'mores pecan bananas foster. Beyond the Foster/foster joke, I could have stood at this table all afternoon, gulping them down. Between lots of laughs.

Women Winemakers Wow at Community Celebration

Community is too often a bullshit word, cheaply thrown about to either make people work harder than they are getting paid to work feel better about their crummy jobs or to convince consumers what they're buying is somehow blessed with kindness and not just transactional.

And then there's the rare event like the Sixth Annual Women Winemakers Celebration held on Sunday, March 12 at Mattei's Tavern, Auberge Resorts Collection (that's not as bad as Francis Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, at least). It really felt special, over 30 Santa Barbara county women winemakers, and 13 culinary participants, and women photographers and musicians and florists and press agents having fun, exhibiting terrific taste and talent, and welcoming all. Like magic the event even had blue skies in this sodden excuse for a Southern California winter that those of us who drove from the ocean side of the mountains figured was just more of the drizzly same.

In her moment before the attentive crowd co-organizer Karen Steinwachs of the terrific Seagrape Cellars said she was spurred into action by Patricia Arquette's call-to-arms Oscar speech in 2015 (this year's fest also happened to be on Oscars Day), and she realized "there are more women winemakers here than anywhere in the world--why not play that card?" Six years in Steinwachs and her team certainly have the play down perfectly, even if she jibed, "Trying to manage sold-out event is much more difficult than selling an event in the first place." 

That sell-out was capped at a number that meant plenty of room to move, especially in the gorgeous outdoor grounds at the back of Mattei's (although it's crucial us tall folks duck heading under the scenic, yet low-beamed, water tower). The food-to-drink mix was as smartly designed and thoughtfully ratio-ed as the Santa Barbara Food + Wine Festival at the Natural History Museum back in the days when the wise Meridith Moore ran that delightful event. (And not surprisingly, she was brought in to help organize this one this year.)

The community reached across winemaker generations, with longtime stalwarts like Kathy Joseph of Fiddlehead and Lane Tanner of Lumen pouring alongside names new to me (at least) like Anna Clifford of Final Girl Wines and Alice Anderson of âmevive. And then a long list of some of our regions best winemakers no matter gender: Alison Thomson of Lepiane, Jessica Gasca of Story of Soil, Angela Osborne of A Tribute to Grace (Gasca and Osborne were at the same inspiring table, even), Amy Christine of Holus Bolus and The Joy Fantastic, Rachel DeAscentiis of Say When, Anna deLaski of Solminer. The list could go on and on. Simply put--if there's a wine you like locally, the odds are good a woman made it.

The utter creativity on display also impressed. Sure, you could have a special SRH Pinot at many a table, but then there was the refreshing zest of Dreamcôte's Prickly Pear Hard Apple Cider, or the winningly floral Grüner Veltliner from Camins 2 Dreams, or a tantalizing Sparkling Rosé Méthode Champenoise, in half bottles, of all impractical things as sparkling is just that, from Future Perfect.

Future Perfect's logo also connected to the 2023 beneficiary of this non-profit event, The Rainbow House, the first LGBTQIA+ community resource center in the Santa Ynez Valley. Inc. Their hope is to create a refuge for the queer community that stands as a beacon of acceptance and peace.

The Mattei's team at work on their two dishes--I only ended up trying the delicious duck wonton-y item on the left, alas. And, alas here I didn't write nearly enough about the delicious food, like Melissa Scrymgeour's gumbo z'herbes and black eyed peas (a tribute to Nawlin's great Leah Chase), and Erica Velasquez's yellowtail "hamachi" sashimi gorgeously plated, and Jessica Foster's ever-exceptional confections, and Theo Stephan's olive oil blood orange cake. 

Third District Supervisor Joan Hartmann admitting that at least on this day she had a cushy job.

Emmy Fjerstad of Forsu Wines, her business so small it doesn't even have a website.

Petit Verdot, Dolcetto, and more at Final Girl.

And then as final evidence of community, yep that's Alecia Moore of Two Wolves doing the palms up in the black t-shirt in the Barn (sounds like a Clue guess!). You might know her better as Pink, or should I type P!nk, selling out a SoFi Stadium near you soon. But for the day she praised her team, poured well-crafted wine, chatted (her table did have the longest line all afternoon, even if everyone was cool about it and didn't get all selfie-demanding or anything, so go SYV!), and then won the raffle for the Estrogen Collection of over 50 bottles of women-made wine. 

The afternoon couldn't have been a more powerful celebration of International Women's Day.

Chilling with Franc, Cab Franc

It's tricky to parse the wine-making business from the wine-selling business--because, you know, there's that business part. Given many smaller producers sell much of their wine through on-site wine tasting--as opposed to hawking boxes out of box malls, say--life in the age of COVID has made that business part hard. Luckily, when the going gets hard, the hard-up come up with a clever gimmick like Francs n' Franks.

A couple of weeks ago Buttonwood Farms & Winery hosted a webinar that you got to eat and drink along with, sort of a dream Zoom (it was on FB and Yahoo live, actually). Some folks were even on site for the event, where they got treated to a BBQ of franks (sounded mostly like sausages, actually, but that ruins that fun nomenclature), a fuller tasting (four wines compared to the home two-pack), and the ability to hear the panel of winemaker Karen Steinwachs, assistant winemaker Brett Reeves, and Matt Kettmann from Wine Enthusiast and Indy fame (he's busy getting ready to publish the book about SB wines, even) live. For some reason, our connection worked best through one of our iPhones, and not through our laptop. 

You see, the generally high acid Cabernet Franc tends to work well with smoky flavors, hence the idea grilling would be good. At that point, you sort of have to make the name joke, don't you? (As if I could ever give someone the slightest bit of a hard time for pushing a bit of wordplay, c'mon.) The "home kit" featured a bottle of Buttonwood's 2017 barrel-fermented/aged Cab Franc and their more experimental 2019 Carbonique--Cab Franc that goes through carbonic maceration. The simplest way to think of this is the "regular" CF ferments in open vessels, while the carbonic CF ferments in a closed vessel. That means the grapes ferment from the inside out. And, if you're Steniwachs, whose desk at the winery is near the closed fermenter, you hope nothing explodes (at least that's what she joked).

The difference is a "lighter" wine, more fruit-forward--which is important for Buttonwood's Cab Franc as it tends to grow smaller berries. Note that vintage difference, too--you also drink it sooner. It's meant to be a "fresh" wine. Thanks to those profiles, they suggest you give it a bit of a chill, too. Yes, a red! It's ok. It certainly works with the hotdogs, even our rather soulless vegan ones (think of them as carrying devices for sweet relish and miso mayo).

Nothing was soulless about the event, though. Karen is always good for a sly aside or two, and the wine knowledge of all the participants was of course top-notch without being any kind of pedantic. So a good time was had by us, and it seemed, everyone. Even if those of us not tasting safely socially distanced on site didn't get to try the Carbonique both chilled and room temp, or try the 2007 Cab Franc. And we didn't get to celebrate Kettmann's birthday with cake, either. He owes us one.

By the way, we didn't finish the 2017 CF that afternoon, and since it was a mighty hot weekend, we kept it in the fridge until the next day. Turns out it's quite good with a bit of a chill too, if heartier and deeper than it's carbonic cousin.

Htiching the SB Wine Wagon to Some Amazing Pioneers

I'm going to try to tell the story of an event in a single bottle. Last Saturday (11/23) was the Third Annual Heritage Tasting held by the Pioneers of Santa Barbara County, a fantastically temperate fall day at Pico in Los Alamos. (Quick digression--do you want Chef Drew's praline bacon with some Lindquist syrah? Well, do you want the taste equivalent of a millionaire dollar lotto card on your tongue?) And sure, the winemaking starpower was there, with Richard Sanford and Fred Brander and Karen Steinwachs and Doug Margerum, for instance, along one row of tables so tight they couldn't swing a wine bottle without conking one of their compatriots.

And that's just the start of all the goodness that Morgan Clendenen, organizer, cheerleader, wrangler, planner, rogue viral video content maker, promoter, brought together for this spectacular shindig to remind us of them that got us here. You can go read the list at the website, but we're talking back in the days before our AVAs were subdividing like mops for Mickey Mouse to fight.

What anyone there most learned, however, is pioneers don't just get encased in amber. Nope, this group just keeps pioneering--messing with hops in their Sauv Blanc, making one of the first Amaros in the U.S., figuring out how to tame, but only enough, the wildness of an extreme vineyard site like Radian.

That pioneering knows enough, though, not to forget. (Wise winemakers watch paralleling the folly of the tyro creative writer who ignorantly declares, "I don't need to read what's come before--I am new!") So look above at what Frank Ostini and Gray Hartley are doing now--a Chenin Blanc. Frank is quick to point across the tasting at Louis Lucas pouring his own Lucas & Lewellen Wines, saying he was smart enough to hang on to some 40 year old Chenin vines amidst the more profitable chardonnay (because, you know, give the people what they white want). And now Hitching Post is making Forerunner (a lovely forwards and backwards cap-tipping name, no?), a snappy blast of pear, persimmon and a zip of lime zest. Pioneering indeed.

Sip This: Seagrape Gewürztraminer

Often as scary to try from a U.S. producer as it is to pronounce, this aromatic white literally means “perfumed traminer” — it originated in Tramino, Italy. Alas, Stateside production often confuses perfumed with reeking, and often a cloying sweetness too.

Want to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

The Wild, Wide World of WOPN

Illustrating a story about a 2018 World of Pinot Noir Grand Tasting (that's their adjective, and it isn't just puffery with more than 150 producers usually pouring at least two wines each...see, it takes a grand amount of even parenthetical words to describe the grandiosity) with a single bottle of wine might seem perverse, but in this case I promise it isn't. There's my first taste of a very long day (this will actually be two blog posts, it's that long a day into night) last Friday at the Ritz-Carlton Bacara, and I choose it specifically because its winemaker was sitting next to me. That would be Karen Steinwachs, who people probably know better from Buttonwood, but then she's got this even smaller designer label to make pinot and chardonnay, and she just happens to be on WOPN's Board of Directors, too. That mostly means she does a lot of work and can talk to the press and say clever things (very much so--she's one of our wittier winemakers).

Turns out the media room makes you very glad you're media; call me fake news all you want, I'll just be over here pouring myself another sample of delicious pinot. Like Seagrape's 2015 Jump Up, a perfect expression of the magic of the Sta. Rita Hills--both light on the balls of its feet and a bit ballsy, too--think Gene Kelly jammed into a bottle. Sure there's cherry, spice, pomegranate, but it's how every tasty bit adds up to a greater whole that makes the wine so lovely.

And that's the best way to think about the somewhat daunting event. You enter into Bacara ballrooms that look as big as a football field, and while some of that is tables of food and cheese and lots of Fiji water (hello plastic, goodbye sustainability), most of it is producers pouring wines and stories. You might walk in just as Santa Barbara legend Richard Sanford walks in, and you feel all historical--he spotted greatness here (well, not at the Bacara--you know what I mean) before nearly anyone. So you go drink at the Alma Rosa table, and he tells you "It's fun again, George," as he's the kind of man who remembers your name and uses it, and times better be jolly as the wines are joyous, especially the 2015 Barrel Select he shares that's blueberry, blackberry, violet, but more than anything, delicate.

But there's so much to taste there's no good way to list all my notes, not even the highlights, like Greg Brewer pouring a 2007 Ampelos Vineyard pinot (yum!) as he discusses the 10-20 year out sweet spot he believes our local pinots find, using a metaphor of flowers that when you get them they aren't quite open and full yet, and then dead the very next day, no, he sees Brewer-Clifton wines opening and opening, growing into their beautiful bloom.

And, of course, WOPN's not just local wines, because why buy the cow when the SYV's a car-ride away? (I think I mixed a bad metaphor there.) No, you can try a producer like Nimrod from Hungary, where the volcanic soil leads to a more minerally wine, and perhaps a better cuvee with only 20% pinot, but mostly built on kekfrankos, and I'm not trying to be wise to say that's just Hungarian for Blaufränkisch, but now you can see how far from just pinot we are, let alone Santa Barbara. 

Of course you've got people like Josh Klapper from Timbre sharing a hard cider (very refreshing, especially amidst all the cherry/berry bursts elsewhere), and tables pouring regions/AVAs for you--Morgen McLaughlin was back in town repping Willamette Valley and their typical Oregon earthy-shroomy notes, for example--and soon you run into people you know, and people you just know as you've met them at another table, and everything is a bright bow of delight. 

That's what a grand tasting can do for you--prove pinot is doing very well and you can do better if you drink enough of it.

Wowing It with Women Winemakers

March 8 is International Women's Day, and its organizers call it "a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity." Of course in Santa Barbara County, we like to celebrate everything with a party of sorts, especially if wine can be involved. So that explains the genesis of the Women Winemakers Dinner to be held at the K'Syrah Event Center in Solvang (and a tasting event prior, in a closed down street, of all things--you can buy a ticket for the whole grand evening or just for the tent tasting).

It turns out Santa Barbara County has a higher percentage of female winemakers than most wine areas in the world. I decided to ask Karen Steinwachs, winemaker at Buttonwood Winery and one of the planners for the event, why she thought that was. "It's probably the same reason we have fewer winemakers here, no matter what gender, without formal degrees in enology," she theorizes. "The somewhat 'maverick' nature of the valley allows and embraces people moving outside of their defined roles. And because we are not (yet) locked into a corporate wine ownership, assistant winemakers, cellar masters, heck – tasting room people – are often given a chance to make their own wine. This blossoms into those folks either heading out on their own, or having the benefit of their own label while still working at their 'real' job, like what I do with Buttonwood and Seagrape. Yet, we have some of the state’s women pioneers – who also fell into this from another field. Kathy Joseph [of Fiddlehead Cellars], Lane Tanner [of Lumen Wines], Denise Shurtleff [of Cambria Estate Vineyard & Winery]."

I couldn't help but ask about the seemingly simplified shorthand of calling wine styles masculine or feminine. "A more ethereal and delicate Pinot Noir is described as feminine, and a big, bold chunky Zin masculine," Steinwachs says. "Doesn’t bother me really. It’s difficult to describe wine – everyone’s senses are so different. To me, comes down to whether you love it, like it, prefer not to have that one."

Since this is the second year of the Women Winemakers Dinner, I queried about the highlights from last year. "It was so celebratory and joyful!" Steinwachs recalls. "Although somewhat a political statement being on International Women’s Day, everyone just so enjoyed the company. As Supervisor Joan Hartman paraphrased 'instead of building a wall, we need to set a longer table.'"

That doesn't mean there wasn't room for improvement this year – in fact more room was one of the keys for round two. "It was a little chaotic with wine and dinner service, and it oversold so quickly that we are trying this year to accommodate more guests, more winemakers, and more price points so that we donate even more to the Women’s Fund of Northern Santa Barbara County (we gave just over $6000 to them last year)," Steinwachs says. "All proceeds go to the charity, with all wine, winemaker time, chef time, and most rentals and some of the menu ingredients themselves donated."

Then there was the issue that since all the chefs are women, from Brooke Stockwell at K'Syrah to Cynthia Miranda at the Lucky Hen Larder to Theo Stephan at Global Gardens, and more, and all the winemakers, of course, are women (pretty much all the SBC women winemakers, from those already mentioned to Morgan Clendenen from Cold Heaven, Sonja Magdevski from Casa Dumetz, Angela Osborne from A Tribute To Grace, Tara Gomez from Kitá Wines, Clarissa Nagy at Nagy Wines, etc. etc.), some men felt somehow unwelcome. "I was a little worried last year that our messaging was off and that men didn’t believe they were invited," Steinwachs admits. "A survey showed that most understood it was open to all genders, but many women felt comfortable coming to this solo. An interesting thing…."

Steinwachs couldn't be more excited for the event. "To me, this is what wine does," she enthuses. "It brings a lot of different people together, and when one sits down at a table with wine – sometimes world peace can ensue. As Kathy Joseph said last year, 'Stop the rhetoric and pass the Pinot!' People are still talking about last year. No pressure on us to make it even more enjoyable this year!"

Sip This: Buttonwood Cab Franc 2012

Buttonwood 2012 Cabernet Franc Santa Ynez Valley:  The perfect, somewhat different summer wine, this cab franc is both light on its feet and full of flavor. That’s no surprise coming from the 2012 growing season that let winemaker Karen Steinwachs and her team pick on Halloween — talk about hang time!

Want to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

Eating Local with Excited Ease

While there's the old saw the more scenic the location, the less good the food needs to be (aka, she sells shit shows by the seashore). That could not be less true for something like the Buttonwood All Farm Dinner that took place August 13. Because in this case the scene is everything--the feast all came from the very farm your eyes also feast on, from the Anaheim chiles to the heirloom tomatoes to the tail-to-snout pig to the wine. Heck someone might have tasted a stolen Semillon grape off the vine before dinner and had Buttonwood's Semi-Semi (semi-sweet Semillon) with dessert. (Wasn't me.)

When people talk local food challenges, they clearly don't live in a halcyon spot like Buttonwood, as there's no challenge at all to live off this land. It doesn't, of course, hurt to have the chef in charge be Jeff Olsson from New West Catering and Industrial Eats. Is there anyone cooking better in the County right now? He can hit on so many registers so well; take a passed app that supposedly came from pig head but had little funk or weirdness, just piggy goodness. And then there was a Thai melon salad with more kick, and garlic, than I'd expect to find amidst the watermelon and canteloupe (it totally works). And if you went looking for the eggplant in the Moroccan lamb tagine, it took a second to discover it was pretty much melted onto the lamb, a lusciously fused sauce of sorts. And how clever is it to take the risk and not fry a relleno, just roast that chile, skin it, and stuff it with piquant goat cheese and sweet corn? Dollop on a spoon of the roasted salsa and the too often heavy (or worse, soggy) dish was so light you wanted to have another, or four.

So much food, I'm not going to talk about it all, for I have to get to Karen Steinwach's wine, don't I? Again, no one suffered empty-glass-syndrome unless it was self-inflicted. We even got some of the sold out rosé saved just for the dinner, and what's better than a syrah rosé, grown to be made the wine (it's no runoff!), in a very Provencal style--light, crisp, dry. Made for outdoor imbibing, especially if you've got a spare pond and 100+ friends to hang out with. Or the robustly gorgeous (no, not an oxymoron if you make your wine right) Trevin (Merlot, Cab Sauvignon, Cab Franc, Malbec), a 2010, which is the current release, so that tells you how much they realize you've got to age that Bordeaux blend if you want to turn its angles to angels.

But then there's the heavenly setting. If wine country needs a poster child, that Buttonwood pond needs to hit the casting call. Undulating hills and oaks and the wind across the water and vines. Plus that air that's to me the soil at work, so clean. It was quite a night.

Savoring a Solvang Spring

On Alamo Pintado Road, the Buttonwood Farm-Winery-Vineyard is a secret in plain sight. If you pull in to the tasting room, then walk out back, the rest of Solvang seems to fall away. Our brief bursts of rain turned the thirsty hills gushingly green; the herb garden did its always seasonally blooming thing; goats and their kids scrambled along the rolling landscape. Pastoral at its picture perfect. Such was the case last Saturday for Buttonwood's Taste of Solvang dinner, when all the makings came from within 25 miles of the lovely veranda we all sat upon for the five-course meal (preceded by some goat cheese sprinkled with farm-made olive oil and fresh herbs paired with the 2014 Sauv Blanc, a snack I could easily have made a dinner of all by itself).

Now I could take you through the meal course-by-course, and not talking at all about the charred lamb chops with tomatillo harissa atop canary bean hummus you scooped with fresh, grilled naan hurts a bit, as I hadn't had lamb quite that vivid in years.

But no, I want to talk about salad. Because we so often don't, and should, but too often can't beyond to say, "Yeah, there was one." But what Chef Conrad Gonzales of Vallefresh did with this one, well, you can see it above, and that's one crucial component. Take that pink paint. Sure, too many kitchens smear a dish without something before sending it out, thinking some color is everything, as if cooking for Instagram. But this beet-infused goat cheese you needed to scrape off the plate, it was so tasty, and its coral pink echoed the zingy Buttonwood Syrah Rose. (Karen Steinwachs is making some rocking wines that cry out for delicious food. Their cries got more than answered all evening.)

What's more, it's a tad early for strawberries of course. So to remedy that possible less-than-peak problem, Gonzales pickled them. Berry sweet up to the point they could manage, then the vinegar kicked in, just enough to make you remember how delicious Balsamic is on strawberries. That all gets cut by the greens, a mix of market and foraged, lettuce and herb, leaf and flower. So many textures, flavors, the idea of salad expanding. The fine fat of avocado. The crunch of a toss of toasted almonds. A pickled carrot, so much earth. And the hardboiled egg, from the farm, of course, so the yolk is the yellow of a rain slicker.

It's something to get the chance to devour spring.