Overview
My wife and I have been wanting to taste what’s offered from the Santa Barbara county area for a while so we made a weekend trip of it. We ended up spending most of our time drinking through the various tasting rooms in Los Olivos in no particular order:
- Story of Soil
- Samsara
- Liquid Farm
- Dragonette
- Tercero
- Stolpman
- Slouch Hat Wines
- Short review
- Grimm’s Bluff
- Short review
So many fellow WB have written better reviews on these popular spots so I’d dig for those as I did a very bad job of taking any kind of tasting notes and was just there to enjoy the wine and conversations with all the wonderful hosts + people. I have a bonus story at the end too!
Big shoutout to Kevin at Dragonette who was our host for the “sit down tasting study”. Super, super knowledgeable, friendly, and educational on the wines but even more so on the winemaking side of it all. Also cool to learn, we ended up going to the same high school (although different graduation years) and got to reminisce on some old teachers we both had. It was a fun time and he convinced us to blind buy the 2015 Tercero Syrah Larner which we’re eagerly looking forward to trying very soon.
Short review time
No formal notes but going off memory…
Slouch Hat Wines (website)
During our tasting at Tercero with Rebecca (loved her energy), she mentioned there was a relatively new tasting room across the street where the winemaker was from Arkansas and just got started in the wine industry.
First off, their corgi mascot, Caesar, is such a big goofball and attention seeker for scratches that it’s hard to miss. My wife would say getting to enjoy wine while she got to scratch and pet him was the highlight of her day and I’d probably agree.
2023 As You Were Sauvignon Blanc
$28
Nose: Lots of pleasant and inviting citrus notes – most notably for me was the smell of lemon meyer.
Palette: Followed the lemon meyer/citrus/tropical theme and the finish was nice with some balanced acidity to back things up.
2024 Rachel’s Reserve Sauvignon Blanc
Didn’t realize until we were back at our hotel room but this bottle was probably opened for far too long because everything felt muted. This was like the As You Were but just dialed all the way down so it was hard to enjoy. I didn’t call it out at the time as it just slipped my mind given all the wine we had prior to walking into Slouch Hat for a tasting.
2023 Fall Out Pinot Noir
$44
Nose: Red cherries and strawberries
Palette: Ripe strawberries stood out the most; medium acidity and medium-minus tannins.
2022 Parade Rest GSM
<Skipping as I don’t recall>
2023 Parade Rest Reserve GSM
$55
Blend of: Grenache 21%, Syrah 68%, & Mourvèdre 11%
Nose: Intense aroma of raspberries/red fruit
Palette: Strawberries and raspberries with a fine balance of acidity and tannins. Really makes you want to take another sip.
We really enjoyed tasting through the wines and grabbed some of the As You Were Sauvignon Blanc and Parade Rest Reserve GSM to take home. If you’re in the Los Olivos area and have time to try these out I’d definitely give them a chance.
Grimm’s Bluff (website)
I learned about this place from some random threads here on WB and on Reddit. They only offer private tours of the vineyard which are pretty pricey but figured we’d give it a try. First off, the property is remarkably gorgeous. The outdoor cabana where the main tasting takes place has an amazing view of the Santa Ynez Mountains in the background all while sitting right next to their picturesque pond (we learned it doubles as a water reservoir) – very serene.
2024 Rosé of Cabernet Sauvignon
$38
Nose: Floral roses and watermelon
Palette: Cranberries (think everything minus the tartness)
Interesting that it’s 100% cabernet sauvignon. I think this was our very first time trying a rose from purely cab sauv and we both really enjoyed it. It’s interesting in a good way.
2021 Sauvignon Blanc Reserve
$45
Nose: Intense guava and pear
Palette: Clean citrus and tropical notes + light minerality
2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate
$48
Nose: Cassis and black cherries
Palette: black cherries, plums, and hint of oak with a good balance of medium acidity, tannins and finish
The following two cabs have roughly the same nose and palette as the Estate one. Reason being the Estate cab is actually a blend of the Cliff Hanger and Contango plots. The only difference I could tell side by side is the integration of the tannins + acidity.
2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Cliff Hanger
$85
This plot sits at the edge of the bluff almost like it’s about to jump off the cliff hence the name. It receives the most sun throughout the day and gets the most wind compared to the others so its vines are constantly stressed year round. Overall the tannins + acidity for this bottle was on the high side for me. The fruit notes for me were marginally more pronounced than the contango. I’m sure with time it will mellow out but it’s not ready yet IMO.
2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Contango
$105
The tannins + acidity here felt more lush/integrated and were on the medium/medium-plus side vs the cliff hanger. Definitely a much better drinker now and should continue to age well.
IMO, of all the cabs I actually liked the Estate blend best as it’s more approachable to drink now (soon). If I really wanted to age a particular cab bottle from Grimm’s Bluff it would be the Cliff Hanger – the high tannins sets it up for the long haul.
We enjoyed our tasting and took a bottle of the rose, sauv blanc, and estate cab home with us. Hard to say if we’ll be repeat buyers of the cabs as I feel one can find better value elsewhere but the rose and sauv blanc were very cool to experience so we might pick up another bottle of them in the future. At the end of our tasting, our host, Ashley, pointed us to The Gathering Table for dinner if we didn’t have any plans. It was a very easy sell with the way she described the food and the head chef who runs it so we headed there immediately after leading us into…
Bonus Story
Getting a table at The Gathering Table on a Sunday night was easy. The place was not packed at all for a 6pm walk-in dinner as there were only 3 other parties there before us.
Honestly, the food here was truly amazing. We had dinner at Bar Le Cote and Mattei’s Tavern prior to Sunday, but for us, The Gathering Table beat them out. Just better in all around flavors and composition. Asian fusion inspired, the food incorporates popular asian ingredients like yuzu, soy, miso, gochujang, etc, alongside fresh seafood and vegetables. Very, very good and I would advise you grab dinner here if you’re visiting and are a foodie like us.
The best part is as we were enjoying our dessert (match strawberry shortcake – yummy) an older gentleman and his wife get seated two tables away from us. As he’s getting settled he saw our dessert and commented it looked really good and we confirmed for them that it was. He asks us if we’re visiting and if we like wine. We say “Yes and yes”. He says to stick around because he’s got a bottle of a 1997 merlot and cab franc blend he’s going to open and that he’d love for us to try it.
I’m not one to pass on a free tasting, especially an aged bottle like that so he gets the waiter to grab us each a wine glass while continuing the conversation. As we were talking shop about how long we’re visiting, what we’ve seen, and what wineries we’ve tasted at so far, he kept mentioning that the bottle was “their very first vintage of the merlot and cab franc blend”.
In my head, I was thinking maybe he’s like one of those sports superfans who talks like they own the team. You know… “our team needs to trade X for Z” or “the refs are rigged whenever we play”. I figure maybe he’s a superfan aka a longtime club member of one of the wineries he’s got that bottle from. So, I formally introduce myself and my wife’s name to them and ask what’s theirs. She goes, “Oh, I’m Marilyn” and he goes, “and I’m Tom Stolpman”. My wife and I had to pick our jaws up from the floor. What a crazy coincidence! I tell them we literally visited the Stolpman tasting room that same day and he asks how we liked their wine. I gave lots of praise for their L’Avion Roussanne and without missing a beat they both quickly go into an educative spiel on the history of the bottle, naming, and the plots where it came from. So much fun hearing the history straight from the source!
My wife and I got to learn a lot about the vineyards, the workers, and even how they met (very cute story and 51 years of marriage and counting). Fun to learn he’s still practicing law so you know who to call if you need help with wrongful claims or personal injury, etc. Might even celebrate with a bottle of wine if you win. Or a couple of bottles if you lose. Fun fact from Tom, when they first started the vineyard, the threat of phylloxera was high on their minds, so much so that they had cars/trucks drive through water troughs to act as a cleaning/deterrent system against the pest before fully entering the property. Not sure if that was common practice back then but cool to learn.
Back to the bottle, it was a 1997 Stolpman Limestone Hill Cuvée blend of 55% Merlot and 45% Cabernet Franc. On the nose, medium dried red berries (strawberry and raspberry) with a light aroma of earth in the background (forest floor). I was really surprised how lively the nose was considering the age. On the palette, soft entry of raspberries with light acidity and minimal tannins. A medium-minus finish. I’d say it’s past its drinking window for me but loved the chance to try it. (Sorry I don’t have a pic of the wine in the glass)
Tom explained they no longer produce this bottle and 1997 was its very first vintage. Looking at the vintage charts it looks like only 1997 and 1998 vintages were made so it was very short lived. I don’t recall correctly if they explained that the Merlot and/or Cab Franc vines were removed but I’m going to guess yes seeing as Stolpman doesn’t do blends or single expressions of those wines for sale but they could always just be selling that fruit off instead of handling it themselves.
He offered for us to come out to the vineyards the next day and he’d drive us around the property. Unfortunately, he broke his cell phone the day before so when we tried calling him in the morning it went straight to voicemail. Timing wise we needed to start heading back to Los Angeles to beat traffic so couldn’t stick around in the area. A raincheck adventure for another day but glad we got to run into them both by accident. Definitely no regrets taking up the recommendation to eat at The Gathering Table that night + got a very cool calling card.
