We headed out of Santa Barbara the next day to Los Olivos and Los Alamos to taste at Andrew Murray and Casa Dumetz. After talking with Noah from the Wine Merchant, we added the Holus Bolus tasting room to our trip.

Our first stop was at Andrew Murray Vineyards in the Santa Ynez Valley Wine Country.  Tastings are held at the winery in a stunning location outside Los Olivos. Owner/winemaker Andrew Murray fell in love with Rhône varieties and accordingly he produces a number of Syrahs, Viognier, and Grenache, as well as Rosés. Production is sizable, around 18,000 cases.

We started off with the Espérance Rosé which is nearly 100% Cinsault. We had to agree with our host, Isaac, the Rosé was soft, easy and would be quite perfect to drink with breakfast! Moving on through the tasting we concluded the 2020 Syrah Watch Hill Vineyard was the easy favorite of all we tasted.

Midday we headed in to the town of Los Olivos. It’s a charming small town that has preserved it’s early 1900s character and features a number of tasting rooms, accommodations, restaurants and unique shops. Here we tasted at the tiny tasting room for Holus Bolus with Mat Hays. 

Peter Hunken and Amy Christine are the wine making couple responsible for creating these single vineyard wines (no blends), from sourced grapes under the label Holus Bolus. They produce wines under two other labels as well – The Joy Fantastic from their own vineyard planted in 2014 and Wineslut which they produce 2 popular entry level blends – one white, one red.

It’s frequently a problem with small, boutique producers selling out of some of their wines. In this case I missed out trying the red Wineslut. I think we tried everything else and I personally loved the 2021 Holus Bolus Syrah Presqu’ile Vineyard and the 2021 Holus Bolus Syrah Franc de Pied from John Sebastiano Vineyard.

From Los Olivos we headed off to Los Alamos.

Los Almos is a much smaller town than Los Olivos but it does have some accommodations, restaurants, a beer garden and a few tasting rooms. We came to try the woman owned and operated Casa Dumetz Wines. The tasting room is in an early 1900’s storefront on the Main street of town with a beer emporium / garden attached to it.  

Sonja Magdevski began Casa Dumetz in 2004 to produce Rhône varietals. Today Casa Dumetz has two other labels – Clemintine Carter which are Rhône varieties and The Feminist Party, a GSM.

The winemaker sources grapes from all over the Santa Barbara County to make her Grenache and now Mourvèdre.

I feel as though we met one of the most passionate young ladies working in the wine industry here, that day. Analise was our young host offering up so much information about the wines and the woman who has created them. She is just one of many women Sonja Magdevski, a woman who most certainly prizes mentoring, is guiding into the field of wine.

We tried so many wines there and easily found several to take with us including two of the Clementine Carter wines, the 2021 Mourvedre and 2021 Robert Rae Ranch Grenache.

Thank you Analise and good luck to you!

Salud!