Saturday, May 10th
Six of us (all but the Bakers) arrived in LAX on the same plane midday on Saturday, May 10th. After gathering two rental vans, luggage and people we headed north to Santa Barbara. We'd planned two wineries for Saturday afternoon but the time it took to get there from LAX made only one winery visit possible.
Our first stop was at the Jaffurs Wine Cellars in downtown Santa Barbara. This winery is of the "warehouse" style but made up for the lack of charm and ambiance with a pretty nice group of wines and a friendly staff. They were a little surprised to see the ladies in the tiaras and all of us with badges. No matter how we try to make reservations (and confirm them the week before), it's rare when a winery is expecting us.
Fran started her "I'll join every wine club!" plan to by signing up for wine at Jaffurs.
We had some time to kill before dinner so we decided to take a bottle of white wine (we bought at Jaffurs) and go down to the Santa Barbara marina and, well, drink it:
We had some difficulty in finding an appropriate place. This booth advertised wine cruises (they were closed) but we just pretended we were waiting for the next one:
After a breezy hour at the marina, we enjoyed dinner at (perhaps the best restaurant of the trip) Epiphany Restaurant & Bar. They gave us a little private room that would seat only six (no problem since the Bakers didn't arrive until Sunday). Food was great but the staff attention (including that from the co-owner Michelle Mastrangello) was even better. A terrific experience, highly recommended.
Since our hotel for the tour was the Embassy Suites located in Lompoc located just over an hour north of Santa Barbara, we had a long drive after dinner to get "home". We chose that hotel for financial considerations and because the wineries/vineyards we planned to visit are strung out between there and Santa Barbara. It turned out to be a good decision on most levels but, because we dined almost every night in Santa Barbara, there was a fairly long drive to get home.
The hotel had an open atrium with a beautiful rock garden, waterfall and koi pond in it:
With the great fun, food and wine, no one had a problem getting to sleep. On the road to our first winery by 9:15a in the morning!
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