California Wine Competition befell at our very personal Chase Palm Park this yr, with a two-day Twentieth-anniversary celebration of all issues California wine on July 14-15.
Friday evening began off on the Carousel Home for the Sundown Uncommon & Reserve Tasting with American Idol alumnus Adam Lasher crooning within the background. Friends had an opportunity to sip mature wines, munch on appetizers, and take part in a silent public sale benefiting The Foodbank of Santa Barbara County.
Saturday felt like the principle occasion, with the Beachside Wine Competition bringing winemakers from throughout California’s most distinguished wine areas — Paso Robles, Russian River Valley, Napa, Temecula, and naturally, Santa Barbara County’s personal Santa Ynez Valley — for friends to style. Outliers included sangria from Spain, onerous kombucha, and breweries to combine issues up.
Whereas strolling the palm tree-lined pageant grounds, I met a pair who really helpful I try the Temecula Valley-based Gagnon Cellars’s pinot noir. It lived as much as the hype and led me to talk with Gil Gagnon, the vineyard’s founder, who was initially a Hollywood government earlier than shifting to the wine enterprise.
“I got here from an trade the place it’s all concerning the particulars and it’s all concerning the minutia. Effectively, wine is that very same means that you simply actually take care of each element and it’s actually onerous work,” he stated. “[The difference is] … hundreds of folks that work on it to make that film and in lots of instances, the wine is me. It got here off our property property, I planted it, I grew it. I made the wine, and I simply poured it in your glass.”
For a wine pageant, there have been a shocking quantity of different issues to peruse. Selfie corks and multi-tool toothbrushes had been blended in amongst chocolatiers and cheese distributors. Chatting with the creator of an olive oil firm, one other profession shift story emerged.
After working within the wine enterprise, Steve Barry discovered a ardour for olive oil. Impressed by a visit to Barcelona, he began his Santa Barbara–primarily based olive oil enterprise LunaOlivo with Spanish varietal olives. My favorites had been the basic Arbequina olive oil and the coconut lime balsamic.
“I feel [the Spanish olives] match the California palate one of the best, too — very easy, silky oils,” Barry stated. “They take the contemporary elements effectively, they don’t overpower.”
Three hours was simply sufficient to make thorough rounds of the pageant grounds, with time to hitch in dancing on the finish, to the beat of metal drums, however disappointingly no rendition of UB40’s “Crimson Crimson Wine.” The reside Caribbean music got here from the SoCal-based band Upstream. They performed genres like reggae and soca, the latter of which lead singer Haile Blackman’s uncle created. Attendees danced with an enthusiasm that might’ve solely been introduced on by a couple of hours value of wine tasting of their system.
