Weddings are a beautiful thing - especially when the weddings take place in a wine region, and you're able to slip away from the festivities to check out a few wineries. This particular wedding involved a close friend, and a handful of old friends that came into the area to be a part of the wedding. On Friday we managed to slip off with the groom for a visit to Santa Barbara's "Funk Zone" before the wedding rehearsal. On Sunday we had a pickup to make at Ampelos in the Wine Ghetto, and were accompanied by friends who'd never been wine tasting in the region before.
Municipal Winemakers ($12 tasting, wines $27-$38)
'12 Pinot Noir, '12 "Bright Red" (Grenache/Cinsault/Counoise/Syrah), '12 Counoise, '11 "Dark Red" (Syrah/Cabernet Sauvignon), '11 Grenache - Fox Family
This was the first visit that I'd made to the Funk Zone. It's in a converted industrial sector of Santa Barbara - artists, builders, restaurants, and a handful of wineries. Specifically I was interested in going to Municipal - I first heard about it from Wes Hagan when we did a tour at Clos Pepe. We were hanging out with the groom, just biding time before the wedding rehearsal so we headed over to check Municipal out.
Municipal is definitely going for a different feel, it's skewing toward a younger audience. The tasting room is in former dive shop, and they've kept some of the old signage around. They've also got a lot of funky decor - goofy paintings, mismatched chairs, re-purposed shelving, etc. It's a fun kind of silly, not an annoying needy kind of silly. The woman who attended to us in the tasting room was limited in her knowledge about the wine, but was extremely friendly and super stoked about the fact that our friend was getting married. Our visit was a bit short, we had to book on out to make sure that we didn't miss the rehearsal.
Across the board the wines had a nice organic flavor, with enjoyable vegital notes. However they were a bit simple, cluttered and at times the acid was too prevalent. The Pinot was slightly too high on the acid. The Bright Red blend was quite zippy as well - curiously a mix of two contrasting experiences: licks off of a battery and light pillows. The Counoise was fun and simple. The Dark Red Blend was very flavorful with jumpy acid. Finally the Grenache was quite sharp, overtaking other aspects.
Experience: B / Wines: B-
Piedrasassi / New Vineland Winery ($10 tasting, wines $22-$42)
'12 "P.S." White Wine - Sauvignon Blanc, '10 White White (Sauvignon Blanc/Roussanne), '12 "P.S." Rosé (Sangiovese), '12 "P.S." Syrah, '10 Syrah
Visiting the Wine Ghetto with friends that have never been before creates a tricky situation: what
wineries do you choose to take them to? There are many great options. With our friends from Chicago with us, we knew we needed to make stops at Ampelos and Stolpman to make pickups. Those two places are always good, solid choices. Since I've written positively about that places several times, I didn't write up notes for the blog. The third and final choice was a tricky one. Go to one the few places that we'd never been to that may or may not be good? Go somewhere we'd been many times already and really enjoyed, like Samsara or Jalama? Or go somewhere that we had only visited once, intrigued us on that visit, and deserved a second tasting to see if it held up? Obviously that's the choice that we went with.
Since our
last visit almost two years to Piedrasassi ago, they're now making bread in the back of the building. Since we entered from the back, the baker pointed us through to the tasting room in the front, but also offered some bread samples. Melissa Sorongon was handling the pouring duties, so it was neat to get her input on how she and Sashi Moorman (her husband and winemaker for Stolpman and Sandhi) made choices regarding the Piedrasassi wines. Early on in the tasting we were able to have an in depth discussion about the wines and breads that we were served, but soon a few large groups arrived, and the room became much more loud and tight.
Regardless the wines were very enjoyable. The "P.S." wines are more budget focused, but stand up on their own merits. The P.S. White had a very nice profile - crisp with pineapples, a smooth ending, medium bodied. The Piedrasassi White was very reminiscent of Stolpman's flagship white -
L'Avion - with a bit more kick. The Rosé was made with carbonic maceration, weighty compared to other rosés, with very crisp acid and strawberries. The P.S. Syrah was a kick in the pants, big ass black pepper and green vegetables that calmed down really nicely midway through to the end. It was a great price so we picked up a few bottles. Randomly I was at our favorite wine shop here in LA a few weeks later and there was a dude buying a half case of the P.S. Syrah. I chatted with him for a bit about how great the wine was, and we basically convinced each other to split up the last four bottles that the store had left in stock. The Piedrasassi Syrah was a little bit more of a quiet storm compared to the P.S. It's pepper and acid was neatly restrained, but it had a lot of juice. Probably one to open a while before pouring to allow it to breathe.
Experience: B+ / Wines: B+
We're getting quite sneaky at integrating winery visits into our trips. This time around our visits were nice little breaks from the bigger event of the weekend. It was nice to break free during the hubbub to take the groom out. It was even nicer to share our new obsession with old friends on a lazy Sunday.
The lobby and tasting room is decorated with interesting old diving equipment and locally made goods - spices, etc. When we arrived, Walker Romanica was finishing up with another group, so we poked around while we waited. Walker is the co-founder and the head distiller, so we were excited to have him as our guide. He seemed a bit tentative about getting too technical with us, but we assured him that we were definitely into geeking out about the rum-making process. He poured us samples of the various Governor's Reserve rums, and we headed to the distilling floor.
We went back to the tasting bar and tried the rest of the offerings. I have to say that all of the rums were quite delicious. We tried the Governors Reserve Rum line - Coconut, Banana, Gold, Dark, and Spiced. The Coconut was great quality - a true flavor that was well integrated. The Dark Rum was very enjoyable - subtle and serious. The Seven Fathoms was awesome. The idea of the unique aging process is to have the underwater waves agitate the rum so that it gains a depth of character from that constant activity. I've never had a rum with such complexity. It reminded me of a good quality whiskey. Walker asked us if we wanted to try a few new items. Being game drinkers, we were up to the task. First up was a new product that's just about to be rolled out: their Gun Bay Vodka (the name Gun Bay refers to the site of an important historical event in Cayman - the Wreck of the Ten Sail), the Vodka was extremely smooth and enjoyable. Finally we tried a seasonal product, their white rum infused with Scotch Bonnet peppers - it had the perfect amount of spice, enough to make you snap to attention, but not so much to blow you away.
