Fess Parker is the maker of great wines; their Pinot Noir is one of my favorites. I was first introduced to them by my father who was a fan of Fess Parker, the actor. As a child, he watched Fess Parker play Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. He even has a 'coon skin hat that he doesn't wear enough in my opinion. For this reason and others, I was so excited to get the chance to go to the Fess Parker Winery.
From Santa Barbara, we drove up the 154 into the mountains. The drive was about an hour, but the last 10 minutes, it was like we had a joke being played on us. We turned up a street and there was literally nothing. Hills and barbed wire and road. Nothing else. I looked at Eliza and asked if we were going to be murdered. Turning down another road, there were wineries after wineries. Apparently, the seclusion in the mountains makes for good wine; that paired with ideal weather and good soil, it was no wonder they were all the way in the Boonies....
The winery itself was had a perfectly manicured yard. The building that held the tasting room was rustic with just the right amount of modern, and when you walked in the doors to the tasting room, it was like walking into someone living room. It was very comfortable there.
Supposedly, we had a tour set up at the winery. When we arrived, we gave our name and someone behind the tasting bar said "Oh, ya, I can take you, but I have to leave in five minutes." Wait. What? Obviously, we aren't VIPs, but you knew we were coming, right? While he gathered his things to leave, we started of with a chardonnay. Our guide led us out of the tasting room, across the newly built patio area that was being set up for a rehearsal dinner, into the barrel room. He gave us very little information as to how the wine is made and stored in the barrels. I had really hoped to learn more about the different wine varietals, and how Fess Parker decided to start making wine. But five minutes later, we were back in the tasting room, keeping each other entertained. The wines, of course were delicious, but I was really disappointed in the overall experience. It was like we were a burden on their day. The only valuable information they gave us was where we should go for food in Santa Barbara and Los Olivos.
Fess Parker Winery is technically located in Los Olivos, but like I said, it was so far back in the mountains, it was about a ten minute ride into the main town. Holy crap, this town is adorable. Upon later confirmation, there is nothing outside the main crossroad that we were on. There was a general store and a country market. There were no stop lights or signs. There was a flagpole marking the center of town. Besides the quaint feeling of this little village, every other store was a tasting room. between those were candle shops, specialty food stores, and restaurants.
While we were starting to get hungry, we really wanted to try again at another tasting room. We went to Epiphany Cellars, the sister winery to Fess Parker. It's actually owned by Eli Parker, Fess Parker's son. We walked up to the tasting bar and was greeted right away by a young lady. She gave us our first taste and started chatting to us about what brought us here, where we were from, and we told her about our experience at Fess Parker. "Oh, I'll take good care of you then." And that she did. She stayed with us the whole time, gave us tastes of wines not on the tasting list, we talked about traveling and school. We found out her name was Eliza, too. Not only that but my Eliza and the new Eliza had the same(ish) middle name and the same initials. We had so much fun at Epiphany and New Eliza took such good care of us. It turned our whole day around!
Starving at this point, we headed to the aforementioned only valuable information given to us at Fess Parker. We went to Sides Shoes and Hardware. Yes, that's a restaurant. The old building it was in used to be for a long while a shoe store. They cleverly kept the name after turning it into a restaurant. I had a delicious bourbon, blackberry, and thyme cocktail and blackened pork belly tacos.
I wanted to let the food soak up some of the wine we had ingested, so to give us a little more time to digest, we walked around the little village. That took all of five minutes. It was really a nice day and an adorable little walk. We had heard about a cupcake store somewhere in town, so we walked around trying to find it. Neither of us were very hungry by the time we found the cupcake store/ tasting room, so we took an assorted 6 to-go.
Tired from the wine consumption, we decided to sit by the pool for the rest of the day. We got a solid hour and a half before I heard something curious. I looked at Eliza and said, "That was thunder." She said it definitely wasn't, I must've heard a cart of towels rolling by. One big clap of thunder later, and all of the parents started plucking their children out of the pool. I looked up, saw the dark clouds stirring above and booked it to the room, just as the skies opened up. Seriously, like, yay, no more drought, but really? We've had the weirdest weather while in California.
Rather than get all dolled up to go outside and get rained on, we ordered room service. Expensive, but delicious. We watched movies all night, ate our pizzas, and drank our wine. One more day in Santa Barbara to explore, so stay tuned!
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