Santa Barbara California not only has a stunning coastal location, beautiful Mediterranean style architecture, amazing restaurants and shopping – it also has its share of wineries! More than 280 wineries are located among the seven AVAs in Santa Barbara County.

We made a road trip to Santa Barbara to relax for a few days and explore a few of those wineries and tasting rooms. We visited five in Santa Barbara, Los Olivos, and Los Alamos, and discovered an absolutely wonderful wine shop.

Quite a few of the wineries have tasting rooms in downtown Santa Barbara. We tried two – Melville and Margerum. Both are located in what is called Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone. It’s an evolving artsy neighborhood of artist studios, galleries, shops, restaurants, and tasting rooms on the lower end of State Street at Santa Barbara’s waterfront.

Melville’s tasting room is right on State Street with indoor and outdoor tasting available. It’s very hip. They offer small bites to pair with their wines. 

Melville’s wines are all estate grown at their winery in the Santa Rita Hills. Their production is running anywhere from 15,000 to 20,000 cases and their wines are widely distributed.

Our host Dorian led us through the tasting flight adding a wine or two. We left with a few favorites – the 2021 Terraces Estate Pinot Noir and the 2021 Donna’s Vineyard Syrah.

Another day we tried Margerum……..

Margerum is located within the Hotel Californian campus. It’s kind of eclectic, very comfortable, with an array of seating options both inside and out. They have an extensive food menu so it makes a wonderful place to catch lunch or to snack anytime with a flight or a bottle of their wine.

Margerum wines are produced from their 18 acre estate and from purchased grapes to create Rhône varietals. Margerum has a brother wine label – Barden that creates Pinot Noir and Chardonnay wines from fruit grown in the Santa Rita Hills AVA that show off what that region’s grapes can produce. Doug Margerum is the man behind theses wines.

Our host Lisa could not have been more engaging and knowledgeable about Margerum’s wines making our visit so pleasant and difficult to leave. We shared an impressive charcuterie plate (I can highly recommend) with flights of the wines. Our favorites were the 2022 Estate Cinsault, the 2021 Estate Grenache, and the 2020 M5 Red Reserve. Getting your hands on bottles of Margerum’s wines would likely require ordering online or visiting except for their entry level M5 (a Rhône varietal red blend) which is widely distributed.

Wine shops can be great resources for learning about small production, new, or upcoming winemakers and wineries. We visited one in Santa Barbara recommended by our host at Melville’s tasting room, Dorian Hammond – Meritage Wine Market.

It turned out to be an excellent recommendation. The shop has an extensive selection of local wines as well as a large global selection. Noah Chow, store manager is very tuned in to who is making great wines in the region and happy to share his knowledge.

In my next post “Day Trip from Santa Barbara” I’ll fill you in on the wine tastings in Los Olivos and Los Alamos.

It had been more than 20 years since we visited Santa Barbara so it all seemed quite new to us. We enjoyed being able to walk almost everywhere, experience some fantastic restaurants and savor the warmer climate. Should you go here are some details that may be of interest to you.

Where we stayed: The Hotel Santa Barbara – Central location on State Street, historic, reasonable, friendly, and a biggie for us, an EV charger on site.

Where we ate: Bouchon, Olio e Limone Ristorante, Bettina, Margerum Tasting Room

Shopping: State Street is a mecca of retail shops and goes on for blocks upon blocks. While we were there two afternoon/evening markets filled the street with local vendors.

We will most certainly return!

Thank you so much Lisa & Calla for the terrific time we spent at Margerum! And Dorian at Melville for the wine shop rec!

Salud!