Santa Barbara Wine Festival 2016

The 2016 Santa Barbara Wine Festival was recently held along the banks of Mission Creek at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. The Museum's mission is to inspire a thirst for discovery and a passion for the natural world. One hundred percent of the net proceeds from the Wine Festival support science education for adults and children. Winemakers, bakers, and chefs from the area served their best wine and food to festival guests.

New this year was the VIP Redwood Lounge (Members $125, Non-members $150) with one hour early access, a private lounge, sparkling wine, Paul Lato Wines, Cold Heaven Cellars, Chef Pete Clements Savory Bites and Sommelier Lenka Reynolds.

The festival always has great wines and up until now it was 100% focused on wines. This year I noticed the addition of a few craft brewers: Third Window Brewing Company and Pure Order Brewing Company; plus a Tequila Tasting by Paloma Restaurant & Tequila Bar (with great ceviche treats).

In addition to the new VIP Lounge and the new whale logo glasses (unless you were a wine or food vendor) there was also a new "Sparkling Way" added near the "Butterflies Alive" exhibit. The new sparkling wine flutes were a good idea, although I could have used a third hand to juggle one with my wine glass, camera and maybe some food.

Renaud’s Patisserie

2013 Blair Fox Cellars Foxy Bubbles

2013 Blair Fox Cellars Foxy Bubbles

Kate Griffith and Norm Yost of Flying Goat Cellars pouring
2013 Crémant, Sierra Madre Vineyard
2013 Brut Cuvée, Santa Barbara County

Sonja Magdevski of Casa Dumetz pouring 2014 syrah rosé

Rob Fry of Fiddlehead Cellars pouring 2012 728 Bubbles

Fiddlehead Cellars

Although I didn't taste everything in the Sparkling Way area I especially enjoyed the bubbly by Blair Fox, Flying Goat Cellars and Foxen, plus the Syrah Rosé from Casa Dumetz.

The general area of the festival followed Mission Creek behind the Museum and I managed to taste some great wines and cuisine from Santa Barbara and the Central Coast.

WINE

Alma Rosa - Richard Sanford

Andrew Murray Vineyards

Au Bon Climat

Jim Clendenon - Au Bon Climat, Burt Williams - Williams Selyem Winery and Drake Whitcraft - Whitcraft Winery

Babcock Winery - Rebecca Calleja Sage

Winner of the Taste N Trip “Hold The Glass With The Logo Out, Pour With The Label Out, Look At Me and Smile!” award two years in a row!

Kunin - Seth Kunin, Au Bon Climat - Jim Clendenon & Babcock - Bryan Babcock

Beckmen Vineyards - Taylor Hart

Bedford Winery - Katie O'Hara & friend

Brander Vineyard

Brewer-Clifton - Greg Brewer with Sonja Magdevski

Buttonwood Farm Winery & Vineyard

Cambria / Nielson

Carr Vineyards & Winery with a novel refillable wine bottle (like a beer Growler)!

Cebada Vineyard - Sandra Newman

Consilience Wines

CORE Wine Company - Dave Corey

Crawford Family Wines - Mark Crawford Horvath

Falcone Family Vineyards - John & Helen Falcone

Gainey Vineyard

Jamie Slone Wines - Jamie Slone

Kenneth Volk Vineyards - Kenneth Volk

Ken Brown Wines - Ken Brown

Koehler Winery

Kunin Wines - Seth Kunin

LaFond Winery & Santa Barbara Winery

Larner Wines - Michael Larner with Leslie Thomas

Lumen Wines - Will Henry

Melville Winery

Mosby Winery & Vineyard

Sagebrush Annie's - Larry and Karina Hogan

Silver Wines

Sunstone Vineyards & Winery - Bill Candela

tercero wines - Larry Schaffer

Toucan Wines - Terrie Leivers & Doug Timewell

Transcendence Wines

Transcendence Wines

Vogelzang Vineyard - Jim & Mary Beth Vogelzang

Whitcraft Winery - Kathleen Barnato

FOOD

Ca' Dario

Ca' Dario

Country Catering

Il Fustino

Le Sorelle

Michael's Catering

Mr. E's Freeze

The Berry Man

Mulberry Love superfruit drink

Freezer Monkeys - Tiffany Buchanan

Thank you for the great Mexican Chocolate Freezer Monkeys at the end of the festival!

FUN
Everyone was enjoying themselves, especially those guys in the group of six picture!

Devon & Gary with Ray & Sally Rapozo - friends and Museum Volunteers

Leslie Thomas (Accidental Chef), Richard Salzberg (Wine Investor), Gary Coon (Taste N Trip), Devon Scheef (Taste N Trip), Doug Keyes (Wine Drinker), Tricia Hiemstra (Certified Wine Snob)

Click here to watch the whole festival -- with unpublished pictures -- in about 40 seconds. If I could just manage to only spend about 40 seconds taking pictures I could have a lot more time to sample  food and wine!  

Simulphoto  by Gary & Devon

CHEERS!

Were you there too? Any comments about the festival? 
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