Full day number 2 during our anniversary stay at the Hotel Californian in Santa Barbara began with a revelation: if you only have time for one breakfast in Santa Barbara, drive up to the Boathouse at Hendry’s Beach. The beach is beautiful (and dog-friendly – lots of dogs zooming around!). The cliffs surrounding the beach reminded us that we certainly weren’t on the East Coast. And the menu options were fantastic. Definitely the best of three really good breakfast places.
Back well before our 10:00 am pick up for our six hour wine tour, Yvonne (our driver and host) was also early. We hit three wineries that her company, Coastal Concierge, had booked us with. The first, Tyler Winery, was the most beautiful setting of the three. That winery, along with Pence (the second one) is in the Santa Rita Hills AVA and features Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.
Pence Winery (no relation to the former Veep) also features Pinot and Chardy, but also has Gamay and a Pinot Rose. They also bottle a small amount of Syrah. The personal attention we received at each winery was special. We had our picnic lunch from Coastal Concierge at a beautiful setting at Pence.
The final winery had our favorite wines, because they feature Grenaches. Kaena is in the Ballard Canyon AVA, near Solvang. A very relaxing setting, we really enjoyed Kip’s discussion and presentation of the wines. Then, we fell asleep in the car as Yvonne drove us back over the mountains to the Hotel.
Coastal Concierge had been recommended by hotel concierge, and we really enjoyed the tour. The personalized service made it a very special wine tour.
We dozed in our room for 30 minutes, then popped up to get ready for our sunset sailboat cruise on the Sunset Kidd. We had a bottle of Pence Wine ready to go, and I picked to go olives, mozzarella, chips, and hummus for a light dinner. We climbed aboard the 41 foot sailing private charter. The crew were great, but alas I can’t remember their names. They were easy to talk to and we swapped tales of travel and adventure.
What wasn’t easy was the wind. It was as windy as they could remember, and we ended up not even touching the tapas or wine. We saved those all for a Monday afternoon snack.
More important than the food: seals, sea lions, common dolphins, pelicans, and cormorants. And a spectacular sunset. The land that Santa Barbara is on actually runs east-west instead of north-south which we had assumed. So the sun sets over the mountains to the west even though your brain thinks the mountains are to the east because the Pacific should be to the east but is actually to the south. If you don’t get it, just go there, because that’s the best I can explain.
The sea lions and dolphins were both quite playful. Most of the sea lions poured off the large buoy as we approached, and then changed their minds and tried to climb back on. The dolphins showed off, with one doing a full flip out of the water (which I haven’t seen since New Zealand, he writes in a humble-brag sort of way), and the others escorting the sailboat at times.
As the sun went down it got cold, but the wind was not as strong, so that helped. We got back into port and headed straight for an unplanned stop at Brophy Bros for a bowl of body-warming clam chowder. Walking back along the beach, we marveled at the wonder that is Santa Barbara. This time, however, there was no stopping at the hotel bar, because between the wine tour and the windy ocean sail, we were exhausted.
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