What I’m wearing: Shirt: PacSun (similar) // Shorts: Frame // Shoes: Steve Madden (similar) // Sunglasses: Dior // Necklace: BaubleBar
This past weekend, my friends and I went up to Santa Barbara to celebrate my roommate Becca’s 25th birthday. We rented a fabulous AirBnb, which if you’re looking for a place to stay in Santa Barbara I highly recommend this house! On Saturday, we decided to go on a wine tour with Wine Edventures. It was $120 a person and they came and picked everyone up from whatever hotel or house they were staying at. The tour started at 10 am, we got on a mini bus with about 15 other people. Our tour guide Antonio was amazing. He was very knowledgable and gave us the history of Santa Barbara’s wine country as we drove to all the wineries.
About 45 minutes later we arrived at our first winery, Sogno De Fiore. As we stepped off of the bus, Antonio handed each of us our own wine glass, which we could then keep as a souvenir. Now this was slightly different than the other wineries we went to because this was a wine club instead. They grew grapes at this location but did not make their own wine. This was my favorite stop. We all sat down and the owner of the venue gave us an introductory lesson on wine tasting. This was my first wine tasting that I’ve ever been to so it was great to learn the do’s and don’ts. He also went through each of the wines with us (there were five different types) and went through the different tastes, where they came from and gave us background on each. After we tried all five wines, he passed around a basket of bread with their own olive oil and balsamic vinegar. SO delicious. I ended up purchasing the balsamic and their house made pasta. We took some pictures in the field (image above) then headed back onto the bus.
The next stop was about five minutes away. I forget the name of this winery but it was owned by Australians. This was one of my least favorites. The girl pouring our wine didn’t really discuss anything about them and basically just rushed through the whole thing. After we tasted our wines, it was time for lunch. We had the option of turkey, roast beef or a veggie sandwich, which also came with chips, pasta salad and a cookie. Lunch was great and a nice break in between the wineries. After lunch Antonio took us to the back of the winery where they showed us the production aspect of the winery. This was very interesting to see all the different machines that went into making the wine.
Our next stop was Shoe String Winery. Again, not my favorite, although I did love their Pinot Grigio the best. The girl handing out our wine seemed a little drunk herself. She kept mixing up which wines she had served versus which ones she hadn’t. The one thing I did like about this winery was they did offer some snacks. They had some cheese and crackers, and chocolate wafers.
Our last stop was the Standing Sun winery. This was such a cute venue. They were setting up for a concert at the winery. The owner also had his dog Rider, which of course we were all obsessed with. After tasting the last of our wines we got back on the bus and headed home. I have to say the bus ride home was certainly entertaining. By that point most everyone was drunk, which added for a lot of interesting characters. We also convinced our tour guide to play Justin Bieber for us so that we could sing and dance.
Once we got back to our house, Antonio gave us a bottle of Pinot Noir as a gift. Overall I really enjoyed my experience with Wine Edventures. Our tour guide was very informative and we learned a lot, and also got to taste a lot of amazing wines.
For more information on Wine Edventures check out their website here.
