The Ojai Vineyard, owned by Adam and Helen Tolmach, works closely with a dozen different vineyards on the Central Coast of California and produces wines from syrah, grenache, mourvedre, pinot noir, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and viognier. About 6000 cases are produced each year, divided between 15 bottlings, most of which are vineyard designated wines.

Read more about other Ojai Wineries and Vineyards.

This is a cute little tasting room in downtown Santa Barbara if you don't want to make the trek up to Los Olivos, or just want to stop by for another tasting. Tastings are $10. Friendly, attentive staff. Great wines and a shop filled with olive oils, they had olive oil tasting there, cheese boards, wine-infused chocolates and tons of things that would be great to accompany a wine party.
In 1962, at the age of thirty-two, Pierre Lafond founded the first post-prohibition commercial winery in Santa Barbara County. Two years later, he located a winery facility on Anacapa Street, just two blocks from the Pacific Ocean. Santa Barbara Winery has become an extremely visible and successful wine concern, winning many medals for an array of wines. Lafond is now in the midst of a significant expansion in order to meet the desires of the consuming public.

Lafond was originally a retailer, and his wine and cheese shop was a meeting place for many of Santa Barbara's wine aficionados. He decided to go into wine production for two reasons: he enjoyed fine wines, primarily French, and it would be a good business venture.

Big Basin Vineyards was founded in 1998 on an historic site in the Santa Cruz Mountains next to Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The old ranch property was first settled in the late 1800s. Wine grape cultivation had been started by French immigrants by the early 1900s and continued until 1965 when the property was sold by Justin Lacau, who had named the property "Frenchy's Ranch", to a timber company. By the 1990s, all that remained of the vineyards were redwood stakes and scattered vines hidden by brush and poison oak bushes. The mission has been to restore this historic vineyard site using modern, organic viticultural methods. The winery building was completed in December 2003 on the same site as the original 1890s house/winery structure which burned down in the 1970s. It is a 'Monitor'-style barn with a timber frame construction built using redwood selectively harvested from the estate.

Windsor Oaks estate is open to the public only eighteen days a year. They do offer limited VIP tasting and tours.In an wine tasting event that sadly has become increasingly all about tour buses, limos, bridal parties and frat boys guzzling Coors Light in the parking lots, many wineries struggled to find the right balance of paying attention to those that were there to focus on the art of winemaking, and those that were there to party. The folks at Windsor Oaks rose above and created a memory for all in attendance. Special thanks goes to winemaker Julie Hagler Lumgair, who climbed atop a second tier barrel, and from above, shared a taste of yet another wine "off the list"...her passion, expertise, warmth, and generosity.