Friday, July 1, 2016

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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