Santa Barbara Wine Country

We started our day Sunday in worship services at the above church, Bethania Lutheran in Solvang. The Danish Lutherans who settled in this town erected this church in 1928. They built the structure by following a photograph of a typical rural church in Denmark. Also, in keeping with the traditions of their homeland, they hung a fully rigged model ship from the ceiling in the nave. It is symbolic of a haven of safety across the waters of life.After church we dined at the Solvang Restaurant in town. A scene from the movie Sideways was filmed there. Actually, in the whole area where we have been touring around in the past few days there have been at least 18 locations that were used for scenes in that movie. A.J. Spurs is another restaurant  in the area where a scene for that movie was shot.

The movie Sideways is a story of Miles (played by Paul Giamatti) and Jack (played by Thomas Haden Church) who go on a wine tasting road trip salute to Jack's final days as a bachelor. The Santa Barbara Wine Country has at least 70 wine tasting room and wineries. I read in the Santa Ynez Valley News this past week that the locals are not too happy with the fact that those places have been increasing in their community. On our drive through the countryside after dinner we saw fields after fields of vineyards. We had no idea which wineries to stop at so we picked a couple places which Miles and Jack chose, all located on Foxen Canyon road. They were the Fess Parker and the Foxen wineries. It seems that the Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Syrah are the main grape varietals in this wine country. We certainly picked the wrong day- wine tasting was nearly  impossible because of the many people out. It was Valentines day as well as being a long holiday week-end! We did not even bother wine tasting but just purchased a couple of bottles of wine and left at the Fess Parker wine tasting room. Even if stopping at the wineries was a bust we did enjoy our drive through the scenic countryside. My last picture here is of the Days Inn located in the town of Buellton. It also was a site in the movie Sideways. John and I have seen that movie but certainly want to see it again after having been in this area.